{"id":844106,"date":"2026-08-03T09:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844106\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:35:12","slug":"the-sky-today-on-monday-august-3-a-solar-system-trio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844106\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Monday, August 3: A solar system trio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe waning Moon steps up to form a triangle in the early-morning sky with two distant planets: Saturn and Neptune.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1175\" height=\"876\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/08032026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A sky chart showing the southern sky on August 3, 2026, at 4:30 A.M. The crescent Moon is visible near the top center, with Saturn labeled just to its left. Neptune is highlighted with a red dashed circle just below and to the right of the Moon. The star Fomalhaut is labeled in the lower right. The sky is deep blue-black with a faint twilight glow near the dark horizon.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Moon forms a triangle in the southern sky with the planets Saturn and Neptune on the morning of August 3. Note that while Saturn is visible to the naked eye, Neptune (marked by the red crosshairs) will require optical aid to view, and may be challenging with the bright Moon so nearby. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-july-31-to-august-7-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">August 2: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-sunday-august-2-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercury at greatest western elongation<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The Moon passes 5\u00b0 north of Neptune at 4 A.M. EDT, with Saturn standing nearby. The best time to catch the trio is early in the morning around 4:30 A.M. local daylight time, when they are highest in the southern sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bright Moon is unmissable, anchoring the apex of the triangle. To its left is magnitude 0.5 Saturn, the brightest point of light in this part of the sky, outshining any of the surrounding stars. Below and just right of the Moon is Neptune, but the distant ice giant is not visible to the naked eye. You can try finding it with binoculars or a telescope, 4.8\u00b0 south of the Moon and 10.5\u00b0 southwest of Saturn. From its great distance, the planet\u2019s disk appears just 2\u201d wide in the sky, and may have a bluish or grayish hue compared to any background stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By contrast, Saturn\u2019s disk stretches 18\u201d across in a telescope, with its rings just over twice that diameter. Its brightest moon, Titan, is about 2.5\u2019 to the planet\u2019s east, while several fainter 10th-magnitude moons cluster closer. You may have a hard time spotting these, however, in the moonlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Moon will then pass 7\u00b0 due north of Saturn at midnight EDT tonight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 6:00 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:11 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 10:31 P.M.<br \/>Moonset: 11:09 A.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (71%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The waning Moon steps up to form a triangle in the early-morning sky with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,28147,66,145566],"class_list":["post-844106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}