August 31st marks the first day since April 12th with a 7 am sunrise.  The sunset will be 8:10 pm.

This will give us 13 hours and 10 minutes of daylight.  The first day of summer had 15 hours and 12 minutes of daylight.

The Perseid meteor shower reached its peak Friday night, but it will still be around this weekend.  Unfortunately, some clouds may spoil the viewing.

Looks towards the northeast sky once it gets totally dark (between about 10 pm and 5 am).  It may be difficult (or not possible) to see if you are in an area with a lot of ground lighting (bigger cities, especially — this is called light pollution).

Here is a link to NASA’s full article on the Perseid meteor shower.

If you’re out any night this week an hour or so after sunset you can look to the western sky to catch a planetary triple play starring Venus, Saturn and Mars.

The first thing skywatchers will see — weather permitting — is the brilliant planet Venus, slightly north of west, in the constellation Gemini. Look for Gemini’s twin first magnitude stars, Pollux and Castor, just above Venus.

As the sky gets darker, the planet Mars can be spotted to Venus’ left as it appears in the constellation Leo very close to the bright, first magnitude star Regulus. Further still to the left will be Saturn shining in the western part of the constellation Virgo.

Click on the sky map above which shows how to spot all three planets as they appear across a 71-degree angle in the night sky. For comparison, your closed fist held at arm’s length covers about 5 degrees of arc in the sky. Venus, Mars and Saturn are all currently appearing slightly north of the ecliptic, the path the sun appears to follow over the year, shown in green in the sky map.

Note the positions of these three planets in relation to the bright background stars, because they are beginning an interesting journey which you will be able to follow over the next two months.
In early July, Venus will have moved rapidly to the left, crossing Cancer into Leo so that now it is next to the star Regulus. Mars, meanwhile, will have moved somewhat to the left. Saturn appears to have hardly moved at all.

By then, the three planets will now cover only 37 degrees in the sky, only half the spread they showed in early June. A month after this, in the first week of August, the planets will be crowded into a 7-degree angle, and Mars will now be to the left of Saturn in Virgo. Venus, too, will have moved into Virgo.
All three will fit comfortably in the viewing field of a small pair of binoculars.

By August, Venus will still be brilliant, but both Saturn and Mars will have faded so that they just barely reach first magnitude. That’s because Saturn and Mars are getting farther away from Earth, while Venus is getting closer.

Spring officially begins Saturday at 1:32 pm.  This is the vernal equinox, marking when the direct rays of the sun are over the equator.

The direct sun rays will travel northward into the Northern Hemisphere, hitting its most northern point on June 21st (the summer solstice).

The final day of 2009 will be special for many reasons.  It’s a once in a Blue Moon occurrence–literally.  A blue moon occurs on average once in every 2 0r 3 years.  It is generally regarded as having two full moons in the same calendar month.  This December 2009 is that month. 

Even more interesting, the last time a blue moon occurred on New Year’s Eve was 19 years ago in 1990.  The next time it is expected to occur on New Year’s Eve is 2028. 

Fall begins at 5:18 pm EDT tomorrow evening.  The autumnal equinox marks the time that the direct rays of the sun are directly over the equator.  Those direct rays will continue moving into the southern hemisphere as we get closer to winter.

The term equinox suggests equal daylight and darkness.  That is true closer to the equator.  Our sunrise Tuesday will be at 7:23 am, and the sunset will be at 7:32 pm.  We continue to lose about 2-3 minutes of daylight each day.  By Saturday, our amount of daylight will slip to just below 12 hours.

Normal high this week ranges 70°-72°, and the lows range 49°-51°.  Temps look like they will remain above normal until late in the weekend.

The meteor showers hit their peak this morning.   See more details at http://www.wtol.com/global/story.asp?s=10889185