August 1, 2024: Venus begins a short window of visibility in the western sky after sunset. Three bright outer planets – Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are visible before sunrise.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 5:45 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 8:08 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
At Chicago’s latitude, daylight lasts 14 hours, 23 minutes. Sunshine hours diminish 74 minutes by month’s end.
Morning Sky
Star-filled Morning View
During morning twilight, the eastern sky is decorated with two bright planets, several bright stars, and the crescent moon. One hour before sunrise, bright Jupiter, outshining all other stars this morning, is over 30° up in the east. It is plodding eastward in front of Taurus, 6.4° to Aldebaran’s upper left, the Bull’s brightest star, and over 10° to Elnath’s upper right, the bovine’s northern horn.
Mars, 6.4° to Jupiter’s upper right and 5.4° to Aldebaran’s upper left, marches eastward to overtake the Jovian Giant on the 14th. Watch the gap close each morning.
Mars
Mars is in the same binocular field with Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster, together makes the “V” of Taurus to represent the Bull’s head.
Uranus and Pleiades
The Pleiades star cluster is nearly 9° to Mars’ upper right. Examine the cluster through a binocular. A few dozen stars are visible. Then move the binocular slightly so that the cluster appears near the upper left edge of the field of view. Stars 13 Tauri (13 Tau on the chart) and 14 Tauri (14 Tau) are toward the lower right. They are about the same brightness as aquamarine Uranus to their upper right. A telescope is needed to see the planet’s tiny globe.
With Jupiter’s brightness, this morning’s whisker-thin crescent moon, 9% illuminated, is about 20° up in the east-northeast. It is nearly 20° to the upper right of the Gemini Twins, Castor and Pollux, that are near the horizon.
Use a binocular to see earthshine on the moon’s night portion. Capture the scene with a tripod-mounted camera and exposures up to a few seconds.
Bright Stars
Do not confuse Jupiter with Capella, distinctly dimmer than the planet and less than halfway up in the east-northeast.
Orion’s brighter stars, Bellatrix, Betelgeuse, and Rigel, are low in the east below Jupiter and Mars. Use a binocular to see the Hunter’s belt stars.
Procyon, meaning “before the dog,” is the next bright star to make its first morning appearance. It is first visible in less than 10 days at Chicago’s latitude, followed a few days later by Sirius’ heliacal rising.
Saturn
This morning at this hour, Saturn is less than halfway up in the south-southwest. It is slowly retrograding in front of a dim Aquarius’ star field. The region has fewer stars than the Orion region of the sky. Tracking a planet’s motion against the starfield requires a binocular.
The illusion of retrograde motion is from Earth overtaking the outer planets. Earth passes between the Ringed Wonder and the sun in about a month. As our world overtakes and passes the more-distant planets, the line of sight from Earth to the planet that normally points eastward as Saturn revolves, shifts westward for several weeks, causing the illusion that Saturn is moving backwards compared to the distant stars.
Use a binocular to track Saturn’s retrograde motion.
Evening Sky
Venus Evening Star
As Mercury recedes into bright sunlight, Venus emerges to make its first evening appearance low in the western sky at 30 minutes after nightfall. Setting 50 minutes after the sun, Venus gains nearly 10 minutes of setting time during the month, appearing higher each evening.
Tonight, use a binocular to locate our nearest planetary neighbor less than 5° above the west-northwest horizon. Depending on the sky’s clarity, it might be visible without a binocular.
In four nights, the crescent moon appears less than 1° above the planet at this time interval after sunset.
Saturn rises 99 minutes after sunset. By three hours after the sun sets, it is about 15° above the east-southeast horizon.
On the 18th, Saturn rises as Venus sets at 55 minutes after sunset. This signals that the two planets can be seen in the sky simultaneously, although Venus remains in bright twilight until about September 10th. Saturn is not easily visible during bright, early evening twilight.
Again, tomorrow morning, Saturn is in the south-southwest before sunrise. The moon is to the Gemini Twins’ right.
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