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.
A bright triangle will greet early risers tomorrow: the Moon, the planet Venus, and the star Spica. Venus, the “morning star,” will stand almost directly below the Moon, while fainter Spica, the leading light of Virgo, will be to the lower right of the Moon.
The brilliant planet Venus is brightest for its current “morning star” appearance. It is in the east-southeast at first light, with the star Spica to its upper right. The Moon stands high above them.
Blanco 1, a young star cluster that may be like a smaller version of the Pleiades, moves low across the sky on late-autumn evenings. It is in the constellation Sculptor, which is quite low in the south at nightfall.
The Moon is at last quarter at 6:19 p.m. CST today. It lines up at a right angle to the line between Earth and the Sun, so sunlight illuminates half of the lunar hemisphere that faces our way.
NGC 7252, the Atoms for Peace galaxy, is in Aquarius. The constellation is low in the southeast at nightfall, and scoots across the south during the night. NGC 7252 looks like electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom.
The Moon slides toward the star Regulus, the heart of the lion, the next couple of nights. Regulus climbs into good view by about midnight. It rises far below the Moon tonight, but will stand quite close to the lower right of the Moon tomorrow night.
The planet Jupiter is in conjunction today as it passes behind the Sun as seen from Earth. The solar system’s giant world will return to view in the dawn sky in a few weeks, shining like a brilliant star.
Mars is about half way up the southern sky as night falls. The planet looks like a bright golden star. The latest Mars lander, InSight, is scheduled to touch down on the planet tomorrow. It will study the Red Planet’s interior structure and temperature.
The Pleiades star cluster passes high across the south at midnight. If you see the cluster out of the corner of your eye, it looks like a bright smudge of light. Look straight at it, though, and you will see six stars that form a tiny dipper.
Aldebaran, the bright eye of Taurus, stands quite close to the upper right of the just-past-full Moon this evening. The proximity of the brilliant Moon should make it difficult to see the star’s orange color.
