Starwatch for August 2026

Here is the Starwatch for the month of August:

When you walk out on a clear night and cast your eyes at the night sky, you can see planets and a countless number of stars.

The ability to see this beautiful sight is a result of having a natural and healthy set of eyes. Our vision is a wonderful thing. It requires a set of eyes, nerves, and a vision center in the brain. The work of the eye is to convert the electromagnetic energy of light into an electrochemical nerve impulse. This impulse travels along nerves until it reaches the vision center. Here in the back of the brain this nerve impulse is amazingly converted into shapes, sizes and colors that we call an image.

We can see the waves of light sent out from celestial objects that may be many billions of miles away. Because it takes some time for light to travel to our eyes, we never see objects in real time. Light travels about six trillion miles in one year. That distance is called one light year. If we look at the nearest spiral galaxy of Andromeda it takes about two and a half million light years to reach our eyeball. Light from the nearest star outside of the Sun called Proxima Centauri, takes about four and a half light years before we see it. We see light from the Sun eight minutes later, and from the Moon, about one second later. That means that depending on their distances, we also don’t see any of the planets in real time.
Real time or otherwise, after sunset we can see

So capture those celestial photons of light as you view the stars and the planets in our night sky. .

Until our next – n … …