August is coming in hot with a full celestial calendar offering Prairie State skywatchers their best chances to see meteors this year and a couple of eclipses.
As long as the skies over Illinois are clear, the Perseids meteor shower — the one people wait for all year — should put on a spectacular show during the Aug. 12-13 peak. There's a new moon at the same time, meaning skies will be completely dark for skywatchers who get away from city lights.
Earlier in the day on Wednesday, Aug. 12, a partial solar eclipse will be visible across a broad swath of the country, from Alaska into parts of the Midwest, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
And later in the month, the next-best thing to a total lunar eclipse will turn the moon blood red.
Summer's main event is the Perseid meteor shower. This beloved shooting star show is active from July 17 to Aug. 24, with the best viewing expected overnight Aug. 12-13. Under clear, dark skies, around 100 meteors or more an hour may be visible.
The Perseids are held in such high esteem by skywatchers partly because they arrive when people are already outside — on vacations, at campgrounds, in back yards, on docks and around late-night fires.
But they're also known for bright meteors, occasional fireballs and lingering trains, those brief glowing streaks that seem to hang in the sky after the meteor is gone.
With the moon staying obligingly away, the odds of a spectacular show don't get much better than that as long as the weather cooperates.
Skywatchers may also see a few stray meteors from the Delta Aquariids meteor shower, which continues through Aug. 21. Their end-of-July peak coincided with the Alpha Capricornids, a quieter show offering only about five meteors an hour under a dark sky, but this year dulled by a nearly full moon.
The sky doubles the fun on Aug. 12 when the Perseids peak coincides with a partial solar eclipse sweeping across parts of the country.
Illinois is in the viewing path. A partial solar eclipse will be visible for a very short time, starting at 1:17 p.m. and ending at 2:27 p.m.
People in 26 states and the District of Columbia may have at least some view of the partial eclipse, including skywatchers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Anchorage.
Some people in the northeastern U.S. may see up to about 15 percent of the sun covered. That's not the moon appearing to swallow the sun whole, as will happen along the path of totality crossing parts of Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small part of Portugal.
Americans will see more of a polite nibble.
Still, it is an eclipse, and eclipse rules apply.
Do not look directly at the sun without approved solar eclipse glasses. Sunglasses do not count. Even a brief look without eye protection can cause retina damage.
Two weeks later, the moon slips into Earth's shadow during a deep partial lunar eclipse — which means the moon passes far into Earth's darkest shadow but not completely enough to become a total eclipse.
In one of the best moon shows of the year, about 96 percent of the moon will pass through Earth's dark shadow, or umbra.
The eclipse will be visible across the United States, with the best timing in the western half of the country because the deepest part of the eclipse happens earlier in the evening there.
Eastern states will see the eclipse peak after midnight on Aug. 28, while Central, Mountain and Pacific states will see the peak late Thursday night, Aug. 27.
Some partial lunar eclipses barely nick the moon. In September 2024, for example, only a small sliver of the moon entered the umbra. The Aug. 27-28 eclipse should be more dramatic, with nearly all of the moon passing into Earth's dark shadow at maximum eclipse.
The moon will begin entering Earth's darker shadow beginning at 9:33 p.m. CDT on Aug. 27, reaching maximum eclipse at 11:12 p.m. CDT, and leaving the shadow by 12:52 a.m. CDT.
Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to watch without special glasses. The main thing is a clear view of the moon and enough patience to let the shadow move across it.
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