The Hype
The hype. If you went outside early this morning expecting to see something like this, this is not what you got.
Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon, August 15, 2025.
The reality. This is the eastern sky this morning, August 15, as shown by the Stellarium app. At 3:53 AM CDT, Venus and Jupiter were above the horizon and the Moon was high in the sky. This was not a “Once-in-a-Lifetime Sky Show” unless you define pretty much every second of every day as “once in a lifetime”. Technically, every second is a once in a lifetime moment, never to be repeated, but that does not make every second of every day equally interesting. Or worth getting out of bed for unless you are an astronomy geek like me.
Five Days from Now:
Moon, Venus, and Jupiter, August 20, 2025.
The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter will form a nice triangle above the eastern horizon at 4:16 AM CDT, August 20. That will be much more interesting than what it was like this morning. It is not “once in a lifetime”, but still pretty, and worth getting up for if that is the kind of thing you like to see. It will travel across the sky so you can get up later to see it provided you don’t get up so late they are lost in the glow of dawn.
What about that bright dot in the middle of the triangle? Now we are talking about something worth getting up for if you love the night sky.
Moon, Venus, Jupiter and the ISS, August 20, 2025, 4:16:11 AM CDT from south central Iowa.
What will make next Wednesday, August 20, even more interesting, is the International Space Station will spend several seconds passing through the Moon, Venus, Jupiter triangle. It will be right in the middle of the triangle at 4:16:11 AM CDT. I added the red arrow indicating the ISS to this Stellarium screen capture. The whole triangle transit things lasts less than 30 seconds, so don’t be late. The ISS travels quickly across the sky.
Stellarium is a free download. It will show you the sky for any time day or night, for any date you choose (past, present, or future) from any place on the planet. If you want to look at the night sky on the date you were born, you can do that. If you want to check out the night sky for the dates of your upcoming trip to Alaska, you can do that too.
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