Summer nights are one of the best parts about living in the desert – after the sun drops below the horizon, cooler air can settle in – depending on where you are in the basin of course. But you can at least head outside and finally look upwards without the sun bearing down on your eyeballs and everything else. The heat wave isn’t going anywhere – but there are some things to look forward to in the night sky as we head into a hot august.
The first is our next full moon – this Tuesday (8/1) – and it’s going to be slightly bigger and brighter than normal. It get’s its official classification as a Super Moon because it’s only going to be about 222 thousand miles away.
Just about two weeks after that, the Perseid meteor shower will be peaking right around the time of the new moon – August 13th will show just a small sliver of a waning crescent moon – keeping the skies extra dark for the Perseid meteor shower, which should be quite a show with peak years showing 100-200 meteors an hour.
Then, for the second full moon in the month of August, a rare Blue moon will be rising on the night of August 30th – appearing even closer than before, though by only a scant 116 miles closer.
