The Night Sky This Month – August 2025
(Looking for last month’s ‘Night Sky’? Find it at this link…)
August brings some lovely planetary alignments and conjunctions as Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury play tag with each other, the Moon, and a pair of star clusters in the eastern morning sky before sunrise. Mars lingers – barely – in the west before it eases itself to the twilight horizon, while Saturn and Neptune move into view together in the late evening hours. The reliable Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12-13 with the waning gibbous Moon obscuring the faintest meteors but leaving the brightest plainly visible. Moon or not, it’s the best meteor shower of the year. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month…
1 August 2025. First Quarter Moon, 12:41 UT
1 August. Look for the half-lit Moon just a degree south of the red supergiant star Antares in Scorpius over the southern horizon.
6 August. Saturn lies 1.1o south of Neptune tonight below the Circlet of Pisces. Saturn’s disk spans nearly 19” in a telescope and shows the southern face of its rings inclined just past edge-on. Neptune shines with a blue-green light although it offers little detail on its tiny 2.4”-wide disk. But seeing both icy giant planets together in a single field of view in your telescope or binoculars presents a rare delight.
9 August. Full Moon, 07:55 UT (the ‘Full Sturgeon Moon’)
11 August. A waning gibbous Moon rises together in the east with Saturn.
12 August. Look east-northeastward at dawn to see the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, rising less than one degree apart in Gemini. Venus, now receding from Earth, shines at magnitude -4.0 and appears more than ¾ illuminated with a disk almost 14” wide. Jupiter, more than twice as large in apparent size, shines at magnitude -1.9. The pair look spectacular with or without optical aid. If the weather cooperates, make sure to have look at this spectacular conjunction.
12 August. The Perseid meteor shower peaks. This is the finest meteor shower of the year for northern stargazers, with 40-60 meteors per hour visible at the peak in the hours before dawn on August 12-13. Once called the Tears of St. Lawrence, this meteor shower occurs as the Earth moves through a stream of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Unfortunately, this year the light from the waning gibbous Moon gets in the way of the faintest meteors. Current predictions put the peak at about 20:00 UT on August 12, but take a look on the night and morning of August 11-12 and 12-13 for the best chance to see meteors. Stay away from city lights, if you can, and you will be rewarded with a bright meteor every minute or two.
16 August. Last Quarter Moon, 05:12 UT
16 August. Look for the half-lit Moon north of the Pleiades star cluster in the pre-dawn sky.
19 August. Mercury reaches greatest western elongation 19o west of the Sun.
19-20 August. Venus and Jupiter are further apart in the morning sky, but the slender crescent Moon joins them over the east-northeastern horizon before sunrise along with the stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini.
21 August. The planet parade continues in the morning sky before sunrise as Mercury rises about 5o southeast of the very thin Moon in the east-northeastern sky. Grab a pair of binoculars and try to see the Beehive star cluster (Messier 34) between the two. Venus and Jupiter continue to blaze away higher and further west.
23 August. New Moon, 06:07 UT.
26 August. The crescent Moon, now just a few days old, hangs about 6o southeast of Mars in the west-southwestern sky after sunset.
27 August. The crescent Moon lies near Spica low in the west after sunset.
31 August. First Quarter Moon, 06:25 UT.
31 August. The month ends as it began with the first-quarter Moon near Antares over the southern horizon.