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.
Gamma Cassiopeiae, the middle point of the letter M or W formed by Cassiopeia, is a busy star system. The main star is surrounding itself with a disk of gas and dust, it’s interacting with an invisible companion, and it’s building up to an impressive demise.
A total lunar eclipse will shine through American skies tonight. It gets under way at 9:34 p.m. CST, when the lunar disk first touches Earth’s dark inner shadow. It will take the Moon about an hour to become fully immersed in the shadow, creating the total eclipse.
Lambda Draconis, the star at the end of the tail of Draco, the dragon, is puffing up. It is about 70 times wider than the Sun and almost 900 times brighter. The star is low in the north at nightfall, with the rest of the dragon stretching to its left.
A supermoon is coming on Sunday night. The Moon will be full only half a day before it reaches its closest point to Earth, so it will look a bit bigger and brighter than average. It coincides with a total lunar eclipse, as the Moon passes through Earth’s shadow.
Aldebaran, the star that represents the eye of Taurus, the bull, stands close to the upper right of the Moon this evening. Aldebaran is nearing the end of its life, so it has puffed up to several dozen times the diameter of the Sun.
The Moon has a bright companion tonight. Aldebaran, the brightest star of Taurus, is to the lower left of the Moon at nightfall. The star’s orange color may be a bit difficult to perceive through the moonlight.
The brilliant planets Venus and Jupiter team up with the star Antares in the southeast the next few days to form a beautiful triangle at dawn. Venus is the brightest of the three. Jupiter stands to its lower left, with Antares to the right of Jupiter.
The Moon is at first quarter today, as sunlight illuminates half of the lunar hemisphere that faces Earth. It will rise in early evening and stand high in the southeast at nightfall.
Orion is in the east in early evening, with its “belt” of three bright stars pointing up from the horizon. Orion’s brightest star, blue-white Rigel, is to the right of the Belt. The bright star above Rigel is Cursa, which represents a footstool for the hunter.
The planet Mars perches close to the upper right of the Moon at nightfall. Although it has lost much of the brilliance it displayed last summer, Mars still looks like a fairly bright orange star.
