• Mercury - Well placed in the evening sky for observers in the Southern emisphere for most of the month, but less well for observers in the Northern Hemisphere.
• Venus - Continues to dominate the pre-dawn sky, shining with a magnitude of -4.
• Mars - Continues to be paired with Venus for the whole month, but gradually they are drawing apart. Venus, as always, is tethered to the Sun, while Mars is moving slowly towards opposition with the Sun on January 29, 2010.
• Jupiter - It is in opposition on August 14, and visible all night long in the southern sky. There will be several spectacular transits of its moons and their shadows this month.
• Saturn - It is low in the western sky all month, and quite dim because its rings are nearly edge on to Earth, and not reflecting back any sunlight.

Wed./Thu., August 26/27 -Quadruple Jupiter transit, 10:41 p.m.- 12:35 a.m. Jupiter is just past opposition, so that its moons and their shadows are very close together. This makes it possible for both the moon and its shadow to be in transit across the planet’s face at the same time. Tonight there’s a “double feature”: both Europa and Ganymede are in transit, as are their shadows, so that for nearly two hours all four will be in view simultaneously. Any telescope over 90mm aperture should show the shadows, and a 125mm telescope should show Ganymede as a grey disk. Europa usually disappears into the camouflage of Jupiter’s cloud tops, and requires quite a large telescope to be seen.

• Mercury - Visible in the morning sky in September just before dawn.
• Venus - The brightest “star” in the sky is getting ready to disappear from view by October as it passes between the Earth and the Sun but remains visible this month.
• Jupiter - See above. The dominant show of the month, as it reaches opposition on September 21. High and bright all month.
• Saturn - Not visible at all in September as it disappears behind the Sun this month.
• Uranus - Although it's the third-largest planet in the solar system, it is so far from the Sun that you need binoculars to see it. It spends all but the first couple of weeks in the constellation Pisces. It stages its best appearance in September, when it is at its brightest and is in the sky all night.
• Neptune - Although at its best appearance in August, it remains a good target for medium aperture telescopes.