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 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.
The constellation Triangulum suffers from a lack of imagination. As the name suggests, it consists of three main stars that form a triangle — an accurate if dull description for one of the smallest constellations. It is well up in the east at nightfall.
Perseus, the celestial hero, stands well up in the east by mid-evening. When we gaze that way, we’re looking toward the outskirts of the Milky Way Galaxy. Perseus’s borders contain a massive galaxy cluster, about 250 million light-years away.
Perseus climbs the eastern sky on autumn nights. It consists of two ribbons of stars that join at Mirfak, its leading light. Perseus contains the most famous variable star in the sky: Algol, the Demon Star, which gets fainter every three days.
The brilliant planets Jupiter and Venus will stand below the Moon at dawn tomorrow. Venus is the brighter of the two. And the Leonid meteor shower should be at its peak the next couple of nights. The Moon won’t interfere with the show.
Look for Mars near the Moon at dawn tomorrow. The planet looks like an orange star close to the upper right of the Moon. The true star Spica stands to the lower right of the Moon.
