Here comes a month of excellent variety for astrophotographers. The undoubted highlight of the month will be the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, but it’s far from the only awe-inspiring sky event in August. Mars and Jupiter will be in a particularly close conjunction, the moon will occult a bright Saturn and, a few nights later, pass close to the stars of the beautiful Pleiades open cluster.
Meanwhile, with more hours of darkness than in June and July, images of the Milky Way are possible as soon as it gets dark and, just perhaps, the aurora borealis as our star waxes towards its “solar maximum.” Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in August 2024:
