August 31, 2025: As August ends, daylight shortens while Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn adorn the morning sky. See Venus near the Beehive star cluster, plus details on seasonal daylight changes from Chicago to the equator.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:16 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:25 p.m. CDT. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
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Venus Summary Article
Changing Daylight
During August, daylight shortened by 74 minutes at Chicago’s latitude, compared to a 40-minute loss in Miami. During summer, the sun stays above the horizon longer. At the beginning of the month, Chicago enjoyed 14 hours, 23 minutes of daylight, while Miami had 13 hours, 20 minutes.
Being closer to the tropics, Miami’s daylight changes only 3 hours, 4 minutes from summer solstice to the first day of winter, while Chicago’s range is 6 hours, 16 minutes.
In Quito, Ecuador, just 16 miles from the equator, daylight varies only about two minutes during the year. Even at the winter solstice, the day is 12 hours, 8 minutes long. Near the equator, every day is nearly 12 hours in length, with little seasonal change.
Morning Planets
The planet display continues before sunrise. Neptune and Uranus require a binocular’s assistance and a darker sky before morning twilight begins. Meanwhile, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are easy to find, even during mid-twilight.
At 45 minutes before sunrise, the brilliant Morning Star, outshining all other stars in the sky, is 20° up in the east. It steps eastward in front of Cancer.
Venus and Beehive
Through a binocular, the Beehive star cluster, appearing as a sprinkling of stars, is 1.4° to Venus’ lower left. Tomorrow morning, the planet passes 1.3° to the lower right.
The Beehive is a bundle of stars held together by mutual gravitation. It has about 350 members and possibly as many as one thousand. About a dozen are visible through a binocular. The cluster is bright enough to be seen from the countryside without the optical assist.
The Beehive is nearly 600 light years away, about 30% farther than the more-famous Pleiades star cluster. According to astronomical theories, its age is estimated to be around 600 million years.
Without the advantage of optics, early sky watchers recorded the Beehive as a cloud. The clarity of the sky was judged by its visibility, still used today by expert amateur astronomers to rate the sky’s nighttime transparency and lack of high filtering clouds.
The Beehive, also known as the Praesepe or manger, is at the center of the Crab’s body, flanked by the stars Eta (η) and Theta (θ) Cancri (Cnc), and Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis – the northern and southern donkeys, respectively.
At this level of twilight, the star cluster is likely muted by the approaching dawn. Look for it as early as two hours before sunrise, though the cluster’s visibility is affected by the thicker air when it is near the horizon. The best view is difficult to predict. Look several times from two hours before sunrise, until it disappears into morning’s light.
Jupiter with Twins
This morning, bright Jupiter is 19° to Venus’ upper right. It treks eastward considerably slower than Venus. This morning it is 8.9° to Castor’s upper right, one of the Gemini Twins.
Morning View of Saturn
Saturn is farther westward, about one-third of the way from the west-southwest horizon to overhead. It slowly retrogrades in front of Pisces. Through a binocular, Saturn appears near considerably dimmer Neptune, not visible at this level of morning twilight.
Gibbous Moon after Sunset
After sunset, the slightly gibbous moon is low in the south-southwest, 7.5° to the left of Antares, Scorpius’ brightest star. The lunar orb is over 10° to the upper right of Shaula, “the cocked-up part of the Scorpion’s tail, and Lesath, “the sting.”
Goodbye, Mars
At 45 minutes after sunset, Mars lingers in the western sky. It is 8.6° to the right of Spica, Virgo’s brightest star. Mars shines at about half of Spica’s brightness and is too far from the star to fit into the same binocular field, making the planet a difficult target—if not completely lost—even with optical aid. Mars disappears into brighter twilight as it heads for solar conjunction early next year. Afterward the Red Planet emerges from brighter twilight in the eastern morning sky around late May. For now, we say, “Goodbye, Mars!”
Evening Saturn
Saturn rises in the east less than an hour after sunset and about 20 minutes before Mars sets. They are in the same sky simultaneously, but not likely visible then.
During the night, the gibbous moon sets nearly four hours after sunset when Saturn is higher in the southeast.
By tomorrow morning during twilight, Saturn is in the west-southwest again, while Venus and Jupiter are in the eastern sky. Look for Venus again near the Beehive.
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