Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 11, 2025

Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report.

MONDAY, AUGUST 11

■ Venus and Jupiter shine in conjunction, just 0.9° apart, in the east during early dawn Tuesday morning the 12th. In fact, they rise about an hour before dawn even begins if you have a good flat horizon to the east-northeast.

Brilliant celestial cat’s eyes shine tilted and unequal on Tuesday morning. Venus and Jupiter will actually be at their most dramatic earlier in a darker sky, 60 minutes or more before sunrise.Think photo opportunity. Zoom in, frame the planets with interesting foreground, and brace your phone or camera firmly.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12

■ Late tonight comes the predicted peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. However, a bright waning gibbous Moon shines through all of the dark hours, washing the sky with moonlight that will hide many or most of the meteors. But a few of the brightest ones always shine through . . . if you’re just a bit lucky.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13

■ The Perseids are still active late tonight. That’s a hint. Even though the moonlight is still there too.

■ The W of Cassiopeia, tilted not very much, is nicely up in the northeast these evenings, above Perseus. The upper, right-hand side of the W is its brightest side. Watch Cas rise higher and straighten upright through the next hours and the next months.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14

■ Vega passes its closest to overhead around 10 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you are in your time zone.

Deneb passes the zenith two hours after Vega.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15

■ Last-quarter Moon tonight (exact at 1:12 a.m. Saturday morning EDT). The Moon rises around 11 or midnight daylight-saving time, with the Pleiades following it up about 20 minutes behind. As the Moon gets higher, look for the Pleiades about 6° to its lower left. By the beginning of dawn the Moon and Pleiades are very high in the southeast, now level with each other and only about 3° or 4° apart.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16

■ Different people have an easier or harder time seeing star colors, especially subtle ones. To me, the tints of bright stars stand out a little better in a sky that’s neither black nor light-polluted gray, but the deep blue of late twilight.

For instance, the two brightest stars of summer are Vega, overhead after dark, and Arcturus shining in the west. Vega is white with just a touch of blue. Arcturus is a yellow-orange giant. Do their colors stand out a little better for you in late twilight? What about deeper orange Antares, lower in the south-southwest? Could this be a color-contrast effect of seeing yellow, orange, or orange-red stars on a blue background?

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

■ Whenever Vega crosses nearest your zenith, as it does soon after dark now, you know that the Sagittarius Teapot is at its highest due south.

Two hours later, when Deneb passes the zenith, it’s the turn of little Delphinus and boat-shaped Capricornus down below it to stand at their highest due south.

  Aug. 11-17: Jupiter and Venus in conjunction at dawn on Aug. 12, The Sky