Posted by: @jo

I look forward to August 12 morning when these two planets [Jupiter and Venus] will be in close conjunction.

I do too! Here may be a good chance to see something pretty unusual: Jupiter in daylight. It's so close to Venus it may be possible to follow the pair after sunrise (especially with binoculars). I've managed to see Jupiter in daylight several times before, always using a "guide object" like this (usually the Moon, previously). (Unfortunately, I missed a good opportunity with last year's total solar eclipse due to some thin cirrus clouds nearby, though Venus remained brightly visible after totality).

August brings another opportunity: to see the dim planet Neptune in binoculars. (It's bright enough to be visible in them normally; the trick is usually distinguishing that faint speck from all the other stars visible). This time, it will be a little more than a degree north of Saturn on August 6 - well within the typical field of view of binoculars.  The pair will stay fairly close together all month. A good star chart will help you be sure it's Neptune and not some other object in view.

Saturn is not terribly bright at the moment, so it doesn't stand out like Venus or Jupiter. Currently it rises around 11 pm local daylight time for me; it is the rather lonely first-magnitude object in the southeast or south (for Northern Hemisphere viewers) after midnight.

Our wildfire smoke remains so thick that Saturn itself can be hard to find, so my chance to see either of these two events depends not only on lack of clouds but lack of smoke.