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 Pisces passes across the south this evening. It consists of two delicate streamers of stars that join to form a V. The point of the V is sometimes called the Heavenly Knot. Star lore says it ties two fish together by their tails.
Orion climbs into view in the east by 8 or 9 p.m. Look for its belt, which is a short line of three bright stars standing almost straight up from the horizon, with a bright orange star to its left and a blue-white star to the right.
The Moon reaches its first-quarter phase at 11:03 a.m. CST today, so sunlight will illuminate half of the hemisphere that faces Earth. The “first-quarter” name indicates that the Moon is one quarter of the way through its month-long cycle of phases.
Capella, the brightest star of Auriga, the charioteer, is low in the northeast at nightfall. The yellow star arcs high overhead after midnight and is in the northwest at first light. It consists of two stars that are gravitationally bound together.
Fall and winter are the best times for viewing the shimmering curtains of light known as aurorae or northern lights. They form when charged particles from the Sun strike atoms of nitrogen and oxygen far above the surface, causing them to glow.
The Pleiades star cluster marks the shoulder of Taurus, the bull. It is low in the east as darkness falls, above the star Aldebaran, the bull’s orange eye. The cluster’s brightest stars form a tiny dipper. It crosses high overhead around midnight.
Cassiopeia, the queen, whose brightest stars form a letter W, is high in the north-northeast at nightfall. One of its stars, Rho Cassiopeia, is one of the biggest in the galaxy. If it took the Sun’s place, it would extend past the orbit of Mars.
The Moon is farthest from Earth for its current orbit today. The Moon’s distance from Earth varies by almost 30,000 miles. At its closest it produces stronger tides; at its farthest, the tides are weaker than average.
The crescent Moon has a bright companion early this evening — the planet Saturn. It looks like a fairly bright star to the lower left of the Moon. They are quite low in the sky, so any buildings or trees along the horizon will block them from view.
Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish, is in the south this evening. It contains only one bright star, Fomalhaut, which marks the fish’s mouth. The white star is just 25 light-years from Earth.
