Trio of Planets in Pre-Dawn Sky

Most people think of stargazing as a night time activity.  And if you want to see the greatest number of stars, constellations, and deep sky objects its best to get out early and stay up late.

But many people haven't considered that the sky before dawn is a great time to go out and look up.  Especially this August, when 3 bright planets will be visible before the sun comes up.

Looking East just after 05:00 (MDT)  you should see the bright constellation Orion the Hunter and to his left is Gemini the Twins.  Sitting between the two twins are Jupiter and Mars.  Jupiter will be the brightest of the two.  In fact, Jupiter is the 4th brightest object visible in sky (after the Sun, the Moon and the planet Venus).

Following a diagonal line from Jupiter to Mars and extending it to the horizon reveals tiny Mercury.  Mercury is a little harder to spot but binoculars can help.  

By mid month Mercury will have scurried into the glare of the rising sun.  Look for it in the evening sky sometime later this fall.  Mars and Jupiter will also have separated, since Mars orbits the sun considerably faster than Jupiter.  

So if you have to get up and moving before sunrise, take a step out and look for the trio of planets in the pre-dawn sky.

Pre-Dawn Sky in Early August.  Created by the Author using Stellarium

Scorpius Crawls along the Southern Horizon in August

Constellations represent a wide variety of animals, tools, fictional characters and mythical monsters.  One of the most famous creatures is crawling along the southern horizon during the months of summer.  

The constellation Scorpius the Scorpion is easy to spot, being dominated by a number of bright stars; the brightest of which is the star Antares.  The word Antares means Rival of Mars, and it does indeed appear red-orange in color.  

Antares is a red supergiant star very near the end of its life cycle.  If antares were placed in our own solar system it would extend out to well beyond Mars.  

In addition to being easy to spot, Scorpius is chock full of interesting "deep sky" objects.  These include  nebulae, star clusters, and globular clusters.  

If  you happen to be observing under very dark skies you may see a faint band of light extending up and over to the northern horizon. This is the Milky Way, our home galaxy.  When we are looking toward the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius (to the east of Scorpius) we are looking toward the center of our galaxy.

As August begins, go out after dark and look to the southern horizon for the giant scorpion; but hurry because as fall rolls around, Scorpius will crawl below the western horizon.

Image created by the author using Stellarium