The 365 Days Of Astronomy, The Daily Podcast Of The International Year Of Astronomy 2009

What is gracing the August 2024 skies?  A rare conjunction of Jupiter & Mars, great conditions for the annual Perseid Meteor Shower, and all the naked-eye planets visible.  Hi everybody, I’m Rob Webb, your Last Minute Astronomer, bringing astronomy to normies and nerds, with little time to spare. We’ll start by talking about the big events for the month, then highlight the naked eye planets, and finish up with the lunar phases, so you can plan ahead better than me.     THE BIG EVENT! 11th – 12th – Perseid Meteor Shower – EXCELLENT year for the Perseids, given the first-quarter Moon sets before midnight.  In decent skies, you could watch 60 meteors per hour, and you should be able to see some very bright ones here and there the week before and after. The strategy to observe this year is to get out there whenever you can, but the “wee hours” and the pre-dawn morning on the Monday 12th is when you’ll see the most. The shower is usually technically active from mid-July to late August, so you may see some Pers