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.
NGC 6397 is a giant star cluster in Ara, the altar. It’s below the stinger of the scorpion. From the United States, it’s visible only from far-southern latitudes. The cluster took shape when the Milky Way galaxy was just 400 million years old.
The Perseid meteor shower should be at its best tonight. Under dark skies, you might see a dozen or so of its shooting stars per hour. The Moon isn’t around to interfere with the light show.
A partial solar eclipse will take place early tomorrow, as the Moon covers part of the Sun’s disk. It will be visible from the Arctic Ocean through Greenland, Scandinavia, and parts of Asia. The United States misses out on this one, though.
The mythical victory of the gods of Olympus over their predecessors, the Titans, is commemorated in the stars, as the altar where they swore allegiance to each other. It’s the constellation Ara, below the tail of the scorpion.
The star cluster M11 is well up in the south this evening, in the constellation Scutum, the shield. Because its brightest stars resemble a flock of ducks, it’s also called the Wild Duck cluster. Through binoculars, it looks like a patch of mist.
The glowing band of the Milky Way is divided by a dark rift across its length. The rift consists of dense clouds of dust. The dust grains absorb the light from the stars behind them, making it look like there are almost no stars at all.
The band of light that outlines the disk of the Milky Way galaxy is a rare sight. To see it, you need especially dark skies. And as luck would have it, there’s no moonlight for the next few evenings, although you still need to escape city lights.
The bull’s eye, represented by the star Aldebaran, follows the Moon as they climb the eastern sky in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. It is the bright orange star to the lower left of the Moon.
61 Cygni, the first star to have its distance accurately measured, is in Cygnus, the swan, which is high in the east at nightfall. 61 Cygni is to the lower right of Deneb, the swan’s tail. Under dark skies, it’s just visible to the eye alone.
Pegasus, the flying horse, is in view in the east and northeast shortly after the sky gets completely dark. Look for the four stars forming the Great Square of Pegasus. The square is tilted as Pegasus rises, so it resembles a diamond.
