Star Trails

• Tempus Fugit: Time in Space and Sky

  This week we explore both the night sky and the cosmic tick-tock of time itself. The Moon waxes from half-lit to nearly full, while Saturn shines golden in Pisces with its razor-thin rings. Jupiter and Venus rule the morning skies, and the faint Aurigid meteors and Comet Lemmon make cameo appearances for early risers.

  In the second half of the show, we dive into the strange and fascinating world of “time in space.” From NASA engineers living on Martian sols with their custom-built Mars watches, to the Omega Speedmasters strapped to Apollo astronauts’ suits, to the atomic clocks aboard GPS satellites that literally rely on Einstein’s relativity to keep us from getting lost—this is a journey through the cosmic heartbeat that guides explorers and Earthlings alike.

  For more episodes and resources for backyard astronomers, visitwww.startrails.show. Share the wonder of the stars with friends and continue your cosmic journey with us. Also, connect with us on Bluesky @startrails.bsky.social, or YouTube @TheStarTrailsPodcast.

  If you're enjoying the show, consider sharing it with a friend! Want to help? Buy us a coffee!

  Podcasting is better withRSS.com! If you're planning to start your own podcast,use ourRSS.com affiliate link for a discount, and to help support Star Trails.

• A Dark Sky for Us, and a New Moon for Uranus

  This week we head outward to the seventh planet, where the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a brand-new moonlet orbiting Uranus. Barely six miles across, this tiny world is so small you could, in theory, walk around it in a single day. But is “walking” even possible when the surface gravity is only a whisper? We run the numbers and explore what it would feel like to live in such a micro-gravity landscape, where a careless jump could fling you into orbit.

  Back under Earth’s skies, the nights begin in darkness. The week opens with a fresh New Moon, offering deep-sky windows before the crescent brightens. Saturn dominates the evening hours, Venus and Jupiter rule the dawn, and the Aurigids meteor shower brings a chance of surprise streaks before sunrise. We’ll also shine a light on three quieter constellations — Lacerta the Lizard, Aquarius the Water-Bearer, and Capricornus the Sea Goat — exploring the lore behind their faint patterns and the clusters, doubles, and globulars tucked among their stars.

  From new moons both near and far, to the myths written across our own skies, this is a week for patient eyes, and a reminder of how scale and story intertwine in the universe.

  For more episodes and resources for backyard astronomers, visitwww.startrails.show. Share the wonder of the stars with friends and continue your cosmic journey with us. Also, connect with us on Bluesky @startrails.bsky.social, or YouTube @TheStarTrailsPodcast.

  If you're enjoying the show, consider sharing it with a friend! Want to help? Buy us a coffee!

  Podcasting is better withRSS.com! If you're planning to start your own podcast,use ourRSS.com affiliate link for a discount, and to help support Star Trails.

• The Black Moon & the Milky Way’s Hidden Companions

  Under a rare seasonal Black Moon, this week’s sky rewards early risers and deep-sky wanderers alike. We start with a whisper-thin crescent slipping closer to the Sun each morning, then pivot to a dawn showcase where Mercury reaches greatest elongation while Venus and Jupiter stack higher above the horizon. On Tuesday and Wednesday a paper-thin crescent Moon joins the lineup—a perfect wide-field photo op—while evenings bring Saturn rising into prime viewing on its road to September opposition. With moonlight out of the way, scan the Milky Way for under-sung binocular treats: Delphinus the Dolphin, M11 (Wild Duck Cluster) in Scutum, and the Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula. You may even catch a few Perseid stragglers in the pre-dawn dark.

  In the second half, we widen the frame to reveal the Milky Way’s “hidden companions”—dozens, maybe hundreds, of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies quietly orbiting our own. We unpack why they’re so hard to see (surface brightness, not just brightness), how modern surveys like SDSS and DES ferret them out, and why they matter for big questions about dark matter, galaxy growth, and the “missing satellites” problem.

  Links in this episode:

  • Sloan Digital Sky Survey
  • The Dark Energy Survey
  • Gaia Sky

  For more episodes and resources for backyard astronomers, visitwww.startrails.show. Share the wonder of the stars with friends and continue your cosmic journey with us. Also, connect with us on Bluesky @startrails.bsky.social, or YouTube @TheStarTrailsPodcast.

  If you're enjoying the show, consider sharing it with a friend! Want to help? Buy us a coffee!

  Podcasting is better withRSS.com! If you're planning to start your own podcast,use ourRSS.com affiliate link for a discount, and to help support Star Trails.

• Perseids, Planets, and the Smell of Space

  This week we’re chasing Perseids and planetary pairings while the Moon slowly makes room for darker skies. We’ll explore which constellations are hiding in plain sight, from the narrow spear of Sagitta to the twisting coils of Draco, and we’ll take a tour of some underappreciated deep sky objects along the way.

  You’ll learn when and where to spot the Venus-Jupiter conjunction, how Mercury is making its return, and why August’s meteor showers come with both brilliance and baggage this year. We’ll even travel back to 1972 to revisit one of the most spectacular meteor events ever witnessed in daylight: the Great Daylight Fireball.

  Then we ask a strange but very real question: what does space smell like? Astronauts have reported scents of welding fumes, gunpowder, even barbecued steak. We’ll explore the chemistry, the molecules responsible, and the surprising connection between nebulae and that curious post-EVA aroma.

  For more episodes and resources for backyard astronomers, visitwww.startrails.show. Share the wonder of the stars with friends and continue your cosmic journey with us. Also, connect with us on Bluesky @startrails.bsky.social, or YouTube @TheStarTrailsPodcast.

  If you're enjoying the show, consider sharing it with a friend! Want to help? Buy us a coffee!

  Podcasting is better withRSS.com! If you're planning to start your own podcast,use ourRSS.com affiliate link for a discount, and to help support Star Trails.

• The Sturgeon Moon and the Fossil in the Dark

  This week we bask in the glow of the bright Sturgeon Moon, trace the shifting positions of planets from twilight to dawn, and watch as a few late-season meteors streak across the sky.

  Later in the show, we journey beyond Neptune to meet a newly discovered distant object named Ammonite—a cosmic fossil whose strange orbit may upend one of the most compelling mysteries in astronomy: the existence of Planet Nine.

  We'll explore how this icy world fits into a tiny family of ultra-distant objects known as sednoids, and why its misaligned path challenges the idea of a hidden giant planet at the edge of our solar system.

  For more episodes and resources for backyard astronomers, visitwww.startrails.show. Share the wonder of the stars with friends and continue your cosmic journey with us. Also, connect with us on Bluesky @startrails.bsky.social, or YouTube @TheStarTrailsPodcast.

  If you're enjoying the show, consider sharing it with a friend! Want to help? Buy us a coffee!

  Podcasting is better withRSS.com! If you're planning to start your own podcast,use ourRSS.com affiliate link for a discount, and to help support Star Trails.