August 2026 is a very busy astronomical month!

1. Venus is VERY bright in the western sky at sunset right now, and it’s only half lit up! Any telescope or binocular will show this.

2. On August 12 we in the northeastern part of North America will get to witness a partial eclipse of the sun with safe solar telescopes or straw hats or colanders. The maximum bite will taken from sun around 2 pm EDT. Some parts of Europe and Africa will get a total eclipse, but for Washington DC only about 4% of the sun will be covered, so it won’t be noticeable without help. DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN!!!

3. Later on that very same night, especially after midnight, will be the annual Perseid meteor shower! The moon will not interfere at all! (see #2) Best to get to a big open field away from city lights. Wear insect repellent, bring something comfortable to lie down on, turn your phone off completely, and invite a few friends. Bring snacks and drinks, if you like, and pray for clear skies. Leave any telescope or other optics at home unless you already know how to take wide-field time-lapse photos. Make sure you cover or turn off your camera’s display or your eyes won’t be able to adjust to the night sky. I bet that a lot of people will to Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park.

4. On the night August 27, everybody in the Americas will get to see a nearly-full (96%) lunar eclipse! You can view this event by going outside and looking up, from anywhere. A time-lapse photo will work well here as well.

5. At about 7:45 EDT on August 30, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral. Ahead of schedule and under budget! This telescope will be a really big deal. My best wishes (which are worth exactly nothing) for a successful operation!

6. The Northern Virginia Astronomy Club (NOVAC) is having their monthly meeting tomorrow afternoon (8/9/26) regarding gamma- and x-ray astronomy, which I was lucky enough to work on a bit as a summer teacher intern 30 years ago at the Naval Research Lab. Go to NOVAC.com to find details for logging on or attending in person.

7. NOVAC is also organizing the Almost Heaven Star Party at the Spruce Knob Mountain Institute next weekend. That’s a great gathering at a very dark site with amazing skies, high-quality original talks and great West Virginia nature walks and so on. Unfortunately, Spruce Knob often suffers from amazing amounts of dew even on clear nights. It’s probably sold out. You can try again next year.

8. Thursday-Sunday, August 13-16, will be the annual Stellafane telescope making convention, held near Springfield, Vermont. It’s been going on for over a century. If you go, you can expect quite a crowd. You can hear lots of fascinating talks about telescope-making during the day, and look through a variety of telescopes at night. This location is where Russell Porter in 1920 recruited a dozen or so factory workers in the town and showed them how to make their own, excellent telescopes all by hand.