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 Moon and three companions form a figure that resembles a sail early tomorrow. Mars looks like a bright orange star close to the lower right of the Moon. Much brighter Jupiter is farther below the Moon, while the star Aldebaran is to the right of Jupiter.
The Moon dashes through a region packed with bright stars and planets the next few mornings. It will pass especially close to Mars, Jupiter, and Elnath, the tip of one of the bull’s horns. Aldebaran, the bull’s eye, will stay a little farther from the Moon.
The Moon reaches the last of its four phases at 9:52 p.m. CDT today. At last quarter, sunlight illuminates half of the lunar hemisphere that faces Earth, so it looks like someone chopped the Moon down the middle.
The Delta Aquarid meteor shower is building toward its peak, next week. Its “shooting stars” appear to rain into Earth’s atmosphere from the constellation Aquarius. The meteors can appear in any direction, however, so it’s best to scan the entire sky.
Sagittarius scoots low across the south on summer evenings. Its brightest stars form the outline of a teapot. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is above the spout of the teapot, hidden behind dark dust clouds.
In mythology, Sagittarius was a centaur holding a bow and arrow. To modern eyes, though, the constellation looks like a teapot. It is low in the south-southeast at nightfall, with the handle to the left and the spout to the right.
The fat gibbous Moon creeps up on the planet Saturn tonight. Saturn is to the lower left of the Moon as they climb into good view, before midnight. The planet looks like a bright star.
Epsilon Lyrae, a famous double-double star system, stands high in the east as darkness falls this month, in Lyra, the harp. If you have sharp eyesight, you might see Epsilon Lyrae as two stars. A telescope reveals four stars, which form two pairs.
Pluto is lining up opposite the Sun, so it rises around sunset and is in the sky all night. It’s brightest for the year as well, although you need a good-sized telescope to see it, in Capricornus. Tonight, it’s not far to the upper right of the Moon at nightfall.
BH3 is the largest black hole of its type yet discovered-33 times the mass of the Sun. It formed when a supergiant star collapsed. It and a companion star are in the east at nightfall, to the left of bright Altair, but you need a big telescope to see the system.
