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.
The constellation Auriga is low in the northeast at nightfall, and climbs high across the sky later on. It’s marked by a pentagon of stars. It is easy to pick out thanks to the brightest member of that figure, Capella, one of the brighter stars in the night sky.
Perseus the hero stands overhead by 9 or 10 p.m. Many of its stars are immersed in the glow of the Milky Way. As you look at Perseus, you see stars in three of the galaxy’s spiral arms, named for the constellations Orion, Perseus, and Cygnus.
The planet Mercury is quite low in the southeast in the dawn twilight the next few days. It looks like a bright star, but you need a clear horizon to see it. It’s easier to spot from southerly latitudes. Tomorrow, the Moon stands to its right or upper right.
Leo climbs into good view after midnight. K2-18, a faint star to the right of Denebola, the lion’s tail, hosts a planet that reportedly shows signs of microscopic life in its atmosphere. The finding has not yet been confirmed, however.
Cetus spreads across the southeastern quadrant of the sky at nightfall. Diphda, its brightest star, is near its lower right corner, roughly a third of the way up the sky. The star is at the end of its life, so it has puffed up to giant proportions.
The Geminid meteor shower is in good view tonight. The meteors are visible from mid-evening on. At its best, the shower might produce 100 or so meteors per hour. You don’t need to look in a particular direction to see them.
The Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak tomorrow night. The meteors are bits of debris burning up in the atmosphere. Many of them come from a large asteroid, which may have been part of a larger object that was destroyed in an impact.
The Moon reaches its last-quarter phase at 2:52 p.m. CST, when it lines up at a right angle to the line between Earth and the Sun. Sunlight will illuminate half of the lunar surface, with the bright fraction growing smaller over the coming week.
A long-forgotten reindeer jingles across the sky tonight. The extinct constellation Tarandus vel Rangifer snuggles close to Polaris, which marks the north celestial pole. It’s above the pole this evening, to the right of M-shaped Cassiopeia.
The Moon and the heart of the lion just miss each other tonight. As they climb into good view, after midnight, the Moon and the star Regulus will be separated by just a skosh. The farther north and east your location, the closer together they will appear.
