Skywatch Night and Day

Here are a few sky snapshots from the past two weeks. The nighttime scenes didn't show up in my photos nearly as well as seeing them in person. Maybe I should have used a tripod.

Recently there were two conjunctions about a week apart where the moon and planets appeared close together in the sky.  The first trio had Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon:

Venus - Jupiter - moon 8/23/14 5:32 am

The next conjunction was Mars, Saturn and the moon. It almost looked like a smiley face in the sky. It's hard to see but there was even a star for the nose named Zubinelgenubi.

Mars - Saturn - moon 8/30/14 8:59 pm

The next night the moon appeared  above Mars and Saturn forming a tighter triangle than the previous evening.

Mars - Saturn - moon  8/31/14 9:03 pm

This is what the Mars, Saturn, moon conjunction looked like from the neighborhood except the moon was more like a crescent instead of a large white dot:

Mars - Saturn - moon  8/31/14 9:03 pm

Here I zoomed in just on the moon:

waxing crescent 8/31/14 7:54 pm

The appearance of the constellation Orion in the eastern predawn sky marks the change of seasons. In the photo below, Orion is at the right and the three stars of his belt point down to Sirius, the dog star of Canis Major, the brightest star of the night sky.

Orion and Sirius 8/24/14 4:42 am

Even though it was getting light out I could still see Orion. Notice the reddish star on the left side of the constellation, that is Betelgeuse standing in for the hunter's right shoulder. If you are up before sunrise this month look southeast for Orion and the dog star, Sirius.

Orion and Sirius 8/24/14 5:23 am

Now for some clouds:

Linking to Skywatch Friday.

H a p p y   S k y w a t c h i n g !