Hi fellow star lovers!

Tonight, there will be an ISS pass visible from the LA region. Step outside and look towards the NNW. It will only get to 41 degrees above the NE horizon (90 degrees is overhead), but still, it's fun to wave to the astronauts, and impress people with your cool forecasting skills. Plus the moon will be visible low in the western sky, and Saturn and brighter Jupiter are visible in the southern sky. You can't miss them, they are both very bright, and beige/butterscotch in color.

Then next Saturday night is our monthly Sidewalk Astronomy night. We should have several telescopes next week, after everybody being scattered here and there last month. We'll get underway shortly before sunset at 7:45 p.m. Myrtle and Lime Street corner in Monrovia - same place for 15 years!

Finally, the super convenient summer meteor shower, the Perseids, peak on August 12. he full moon is on Aug 15th, so even a day or two before the peak on the evening of the 11th, morning of the 12th would be fine, as there are several days of higher rates on either side of the peak. I think we will be heading someplace dark, without telescopes, and with meteor observing chairs and meteor counting tools (eyes, clipboard, pencil, clock, and coffee) Sunday night the 11th. The NASA What's Up video team will tell you about the Perseids here: https://youtu.be/k74kIAHS-ag

I found this nifty moonrise/set - sunrise/set calendar, a good way to eyeball how many hours between moonset and sunrise. Aug 11/12 will provide several hours of darkish sky. https://bit.ly/2MHVsy6

That's all for this month (until something else interesting in the sky occurs) Jane

ISS PASS Details: Time: Sat Aug 03 9:34 PM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 41°, Appears: 18° above 
NNW, Disappears: 41° above NE

-- Jane Houston Jones, retired JPLer Twitter: @jhjones @otastro http://www.otastro.org/ Astronomy, travel, music, food, cats