The Sky Tonight: August 2025

The Casual Observer

August brings us into the season of Djilba. This is a transitional interval the place winter continues however finally provides strategy to new progress. 

The Milky Way continues to dominate the evening sky regardless of the place you look. The additional you may get away from any lights, the higher. Look to Scorpius and Sagittarius to determine the center of the galaxy with its brilliant star fields. 

Facing east, Venus and Jupiter placed on a present within the morning skies. All month, Venus appears to hold above the horizon, whereas Jupiter rises increased within the sky daily to greet it. On the mornings of August 12 and 13 they are going to be inside 1 diploma of one another, lower than the width of your thumbnail at arms size, however you may nonetheless go and have a look at them any day this month. Venus is the brighter one in these views. 

You may see issues concerning the Perseid meteor bathe in your information feeds this month. Unfortunately, we will’t actually see a lot of this bathe from Australia. If you reside proper up north or within the Top End you may see some meteors low on the northern horizon on the mornings of August 12/13. From Perth, you’re higher off Venus and Jupiter as an alternative. 

ISS sightings from Perth

The International Space Station passes overhead a number of instances a day. Most of those passes are too faint to see however a few notable sightings* are: 

Date, time	Appears	Max Height	Disappears	Magnitude	Duration
3 Aug 06:11 AM	10° above SW	53°	10° above ENE	-3.1	6.5 min
6 Aug 05:25 AM	77° above NNE	77°	10° above NE	-3.8	3 min

*Note: These predictions are solely correct a couple of days prematurely. Check the sources linked for extra exact predictions on the day of your observations. 

Moon phases

First Quarter: August 1 

Full Moon: August 9 

Last Quarter: August 16 

New Moon: August 23 

Dates of curiosity

Aug 12: Closest encounter of Venus and Jupiter 

Aug 24: 19^th anniversary of Pluto being reclassified as a Dwarf Planet 

Aug 28: Moon near Mars 

Planets to search for

Venus and Jupiter dominate the japanese morning sky this month. Keep your eye out for the shut encounter on August 12/13. They are joined by Mercury low within the sky within the second half of the month. 

Mars is there within the northwest after sundown, although it’s not very brilliant. It will proceed to hold there for the subsequent couple of months. Saturn is rising within the east at about 8:30pm this month so in the event you’re up a bit later its yellowish tinge will make for sight within the northeastern sky. 

Constellation of the month

Norma – The Set Square

Norma is a small constellation within the southern sky and is commonly represented as a set sq. or carpenter’s sq.. The constellation was named by Nicolas-Loius de Lacaille, that powerhouse of constellation mappers who named 13 extra constellations along with Norma. All of those have been named after instruments of the Age of Enlightenment.  

Norma straddles a part of the Milky Way – the Norma Arm as it’s known as – so incorporates fields of numerous thousands and thousands of stars and additionally permits views exterior our galaxy to the distant universe, all whereas being fairly faint. Gamma Norma – the brightest star within the constellation – is available in at solely a measly magnitude 4 and every thing else within the constellation is fainter than that. 

Offering a view to the distant universe, Norma incorporates many deep sky objects. Perhaps most visually putting is the Jellyfish Galaxy within the Norma Cluster. This galaxy is shifting by means of a very dense galaxy cluster and the encompassing resistance of intergalactic fuel strips materials from the galaxy into a protracted tail. The analogy is like placing your head in entrance of a pedestal fan and letting it blow your hair again behind you. 

Astronmers finding out distant galaxies within the constellation of Norma observed that – after accounting for the motion of the galaxies brought on by the increasing universe – the galaxies have been all nonetheless shifting in the identical route in direction of… one thing. That one thing is now known as the ‘Great Attractor’, whose gravity dominates the close by universe on this route. Unfortunately, the Great Attractor lies immediately within the line of sight of the Milky Way, so is obscured by the celebs and fuel in our personal galaxy. Further examine has result in the conclusion that the Great Attractor is the central level of a good bigger supercluster of galaxies known as Laniakea, of which the Milky Way is an element. 

Object for the small telescope

Venus and Jupiter

The shut encounter of Venus and Jupiter on the morning of August 12 makes for wonderful viewing in even a low powered telescope. You might even be capable of resolve a few of Jupiter’s moons or the part of Venus.