Scorpius and Sagittarius highlight July nights, scooting low across the south. Antares highlights the scorpion’s hook-shaped body, with teapot-shaped Sagittarius to its left. Under dark skies, the Milky Way rises from the teapot’s spout like steam. Meanwhile, the Big Dipper stands high in the north and northwest during the evening, with its handle to the upper left and bowl to the lower right.
The full Moon of July is known as the Hay Moon, Thunder Moon, or Apollo Moon.
Perigee July 13
Apogee July 25
Moon phases are Central Time.
One of autumn’s sky highlights is the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s the most distant object that’s readily visible to the unaided eye — about 2.5 million light-years away. It is in the east-northeast at nightfall and looks like a small, fuzzy patch of light.
The star Aldebaran is low in the east by 10 p.m. It’s 65 light-years away, so the light we see from Aldebaran tonight left the star 65 years ago. The Pleiades star cluster is above Aldebaran. We see it as it looked near the start of the 17th century.
Mars is creeping into view in the early morning. It’s quite low in the east as twilight begins to paint the sky and looks like a moderately bright star. It will be easier to pick out tomorrow because it will stand just below the crescent Moon.
Sandwiched between the big constellations Taurus, Cetus, and Eridanus is a small, extinct constellation that honored England’s King George II. Its brightest star, known today as Omicron 2 Eridani, is really three stars bound by gravity.
The faint constellation Microscopium is low in the south at nightfall. One of its members, AU Microscopium, is a newborn red-dwarf star. The faint light is encircled by a disk of dust that could provide the raw materials for making planets.
Look for the Moon high in the sky at first light tomorrow. The bright star Regulus, which represents the heart of Leo, the lion, will stand below it.
The Moon is at last-quarter today. It lines up at a right angle to the line between Earth and the Sun, so sunlight illuminates half of the hemisphere that faces our way. The Moon is now three-fourths of the way through its month-long cycle of phases.
A pair of astronomical markers of the summer season is still in view. As twilight begins to fade, look toward the southwest for the sinuous outline of Scorpius, the scorpion, with teapot-shaped Sagittarius to its upper left.
Earth is running into a celestial sandstorm — a cloud of dust from Halley’s Comet. That produces the Orionid meteor shower. Unfortunately, though, the Moon is in the way, so only the brightest of the “shooting stars” will shine through.
Capricornus, the sea goat, is in the south at nightfall. Its brightest stars form a wide triangle, with the star Deneb Algedi at the left point. Its name means “tail of the kid,” which references its position at the tail of the sea goat.
