August 12's astroday: parade, eclipse, Perseids in Irkutsk?
Mark your calendar for 12 August 2026. Roscosmos called this date the «main astroday of the year» in its Telegram channel. It is notable because before sunrise one can observe a parade of planets, during the day — a solar eclipse, and after sunset — the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Irkutsk State University (ISU) Sergei Yazev told an IrCity journalist whether all this can be seen in Irkutsk Oblast.
As for the great parade of planets, Roscosmos notes that before dawn Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus will be visible in the sky. Sergei Yazev noted that this is not such a rare phenomenon. For example, another parade of planets can be seen as early as 28 February, though Mars will not be there, but Venus will.
«Astronomers always cringe and spit at this, because five planets are often visible to the naked eye in the sky — from Mercury to Saturn. They are constantly moving along roughly the same band, so they regularly come together. Uranus and Neptune will not be visible to the naked eye; you need a telescope for that, a fairly powerful one,» the astronomer said.
The solar eclipse will not be visible from Irkutsk Oblast. The closest point where it can be seen is a remote spot on the Taimyr Peninsula in Krasnoyarsk Krai, where there are not even roads, and you can only get there by helicopter.
«The path will go through the northeastern part of the Taimyr Peninsula, then across the Arctic Ocean, about 100 kilometers from the North Pole, and then on to Europe — through Iceland. After that, the path will turn, paradoxical as it may sound, south to Spain. That is where thousands, if not tens of thousands, of »eclipse hunters« will go this summer, I think,» said Sergei Yazev.
But the peak of the Perseid meteor shower can be seen from Irkutsk. This time the astronomical events coincide so that the moon will set together with the sun, which means the night sky will not be illuminated.
«This is very good. When we observed the meteor shower on Olkhon Island last year, the moon interfered a lot. But here the situation will be ideal,» the astronomer added.
By the way, 2025 was also rich in celestial beauty. We covered the main astronomical events of the past year in this article.
