This week, skygazers have two celestial events to be excited about, with a Jupiter–Venus planetary conjunction and the Perseid meteor shower peak.
Unfortunately, this is a bad-news, good-news-situation. Let’s start with the bad news first.
The summer showstopper Perseid meteor shower is underway, and the peak happens from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
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This dependable meteor shower comes from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle and produces about 25 meteors per hour. Under dark skies, between 50 and 100 meteors per hour are visible, according to NASA.
A dark sky is key to spotting meteors. Moving away from city lights and other light pollution sources can also help, but if the Moon is full it’s extremely hard to spot these meteors.
FILE: Perseid meteor shower on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.
(NASA / NASA)
However, this year, the Perseids’ most active nights happen less than a week after the full Moon. A mostly full Moon will wash out the best meteor shower of the summer, with only the brightest meteors visible.
There is still a chance to spot some meteors as the Perseids continue through Aug. 24, when moonlight will be less of an issue.
Here’s the good news.
Two planets – Jupiter and Venus – will appear close in the night sky, known as a conjunction, on Monday night into Tuesday morning and moonlight won’t interfere with this view.
FILE: A waxing crescent moon setting in the early evening with bright Venus visible nearby. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford
(NASA)
According to NASA, the conjunction will be best viewed after 4 a.m. EST, but the visibility will ultimately depend on cloud cover along the eastern horizon.
Tuesday morning stargazing forecast from the FOX Forecast Center.
(FOX Weather)
This conjunction, of our two brightest planets, will appear in the east and look almost like one bright star only a degree apart in the sky.
The planets will still be relatively close on Aug. 19 and 20 when a crescent Moon makes the celestial show a trio with Jupiter, Venus and the Moon appearing in the eastern sky for a few hours before sunrise.
