Fred Schaaf
SkyandTelescope.com August 2014 47OBSERVING
Northern Hemisphere’s Sky
Fred Schaaf welcomes your
comments at [email protected].August: Milky Way County
Visit the magical land where the Milky Way reigns supreme.
might be fortunate enough to live in a place where that’s
still possible. But most people have to drive away from the
city they live in, fi rst by highway and then by back road, to
a rural location where the Milky Way still rules. We can
call such a place Milky Way County.
In a sense, we see the Milky Way all the time, because
everything on Earth — sticks, stones, plants, animals,
even ourselves — is part of the Milky Way Galaxy. But
that’s a far cry from seeing the Milky Way band as a
whole. We’re lucky that something as prosaic as a car ride
can transport us to the awesome star clouds of our home
galaxy. They’re right out there, decorated with glowing
puff s of naked-eye nebulae such as M8 in Sagittarius
and star clusters such as M6 and M7 in Scorpius. This is
nature’s hugest and grandest sight — the vast span of the
Milky Way’s equatorial disk. And to see it you have to be
somewhere special: a place called Milky Way County. ✦Earlier this year the movie August: Osage County was
nominated for the Academy Awards. It was based on the
Pulitzer-Prize-winning play of the same name. I haven’t
seen either the play or the movie. But I like the idea of
taking that sort of phrase, which sounds like the name of
a still-life painting, and using it unexpectedly as the title
of a play or fi lm — or an astronomy column. So let me
explain why “August: Milky Way County” seems like an
appropriate title for this column.
August: Astronomy and Anticipation. Let’s start
with the month. I have always loved August as a time
for astronomy. For many of us at mid-northern latitudes,
August off ers not only rapidly lengthening nights but
also, after June and July’s long spells of hot, hazy nights,
an increasing number of cold fronts rushing through to
give us transparent skies.
It’s also a great month for anticipation. In late August,
we get hints of the beautiful colored foliage and bird
migrations of autumn. And in many locales, we can
look forward to September and early October off ering
the year’s most cloud-free and transparent skies. August
even off ers us glimpses of splendors beyond autumn.
Astronomy writer Guy Ottewell notes that in this month:
“Before dawn, we see Orion rise again into the eastern
sky, a foretaste of the glories of winter.” And August off ers
strong incentives to be up before dawn.
In many years, people rise early to view, from about
August 10th to 14th, the 4 a.m nightly peak of the Perse-
ids, the most popular meteor shower. Earlier in the night
Perseid watchers see fi rst Cassiopeia, then Perseus, then
even the dazzling winter star Capella climb into easy view
in the northeast. In some years — including 2014 — a
bright Moon hampers observing the Perseids. Yet even
then, there’s often a good reason to be out as dawn nears.
This year, make sure you’re up in plenty of time to view
the very rare and strikingly close conjunction of Venus
and Jupiter during morning twilight on August 18th.
Fortunately, every August there are Moon-free eve-
nings when an even grander phenomenon than the Per-
seids can be seen at its best. This is the best time to view
the brightest part of the Milky Way band.
Milky Way County. When the corn is at its highest, so
is the most glorious stretch of the Milky Way band. There
was a time when most people had dark enough skies to
see this great splendor well on August evenings. You
The Milky Way glows behind a monument to 19th-century settlers
in rural Morris County, Kansas, 50 miles southwest of Topeka.DOUG ZUBENEL