August 15, 2022 By Daniel GiamarioWith the Sun square Uranus quadrature on August 11 and August 14’s Sun/Saturn yearly opposition behind us, let’s look at what’s happening this week with the visible planets. It’s a great week for planet watching.
MOST OF THE NIGHT
JUPITER, shining at magnitude -2.8 dominates most of the night sky, rising in the East soon after dusk. The major experiential highlight of the week is Monday morning August 15’s spectacular Moon/Jupiter conjunction at 3:59AM PDT. If you get up really early, you can see this before they set. Jupiter, now retrograde, is still amplifying the 8th degree of Aries. Remaining retrograde until November 23, Jupiter will not return to this 8th degree of Aries until mid-February of 2023.
SATURN, far less bright at magnitude +0.3, can now be seen all night long, as at opposition it rises in the East at sunset and sets in the West at sunrise. In retrograde until September 23 and moving very slowly now, Saturn hovers at the 21st degree of Aquarius, still near the tail of the Goat-Fish constellation.
MORNING SKY
VENUS is soon ending her morning star reign, now a mere 18 degrees in front of the Sun and shining at magnitude -3.9, which is considerably less than she can be. Venus is now in early Leo, and appears just after the onset of dusk in the morning. Her next stop is the rare and portentous Moon/Venus 8th gate of “death by intent” on August 25/26. She will disappear from the morning sky by mid-September and enter the exterior underworld.
MARS now at magnitude +0.1 is slowly gaining brightness as opposition approaches in December. Mars is now nearly double the brightness of nearby Aldebaran, and can be easily seen high up in the morning sky. Now in late Taurus, Mars will enter Gemini on August 20. On August 19/20 Mars can be seen conjunct the Pleiades and entering into the Lakota termed “Sacred Hoop.” Quadrature (Sun square Mars) will be reached on August 27.
A second highlight of the week is the Moon’s conjunction withMars at 4:06AM PDT on the morning of Friday, August 19, just before entering Gemini. This clearly announces the final phase of the current Aries/Mars Synodic Overstory. My colleague, Erik Roth, and I will facilitate a seminar about this on August 22.
Details and registration can be found here:https://turningoftheages.com/event/mars-webinar/
EVENING SKY
MERCURY is now the only true evening planet, though for Northern Hemisphere folks it will be difficult to see. Shining brightly enough at 0.0 magnitude, a good 25 degrees from the Sun, its orbital arc is rather close to the horizon. Greatest elongation comes on August 27. Mercury begins this week at 17Virgo19 and will enter Libra next week on August 25. This is currently the Hermes phase of the Taurus Mercury Overstory. More information on the Mercury Synodic Overstories (as well as much more free to watch content) can be found here: https://turningoftheages.com/media/ – March 2021 All About Mercury