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.
Neptune is the Sun’s most remote major planet, and the fourth largest, but it is too faint to see with the unaided eye. This evening, it stands above the crescent Moon. Under dark skies, Neptune is visible through strong binoculars or a small telescope.
Two faint stars in Cancer have names that mean the northern and southern donkeys — Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis. They’re on opposite sides of the crab’s back. They flank Cancer’s most famous member, a star cluster known as the manger or the beehive.
Most stars are born in giant, colorful clouds of gas and dust. One example is the Rosette Nebula, which looks like a rose. It’s in Monoceros, the unicorn, which is in the south-southeast at nightfall, to the lower left of much brighter Orion.
Monoceros, the unicorn, fills a void between the bright constellations Orion, Gemini, Canis Major, and Canis Minor. Yet you need dark skies to see even a smattering of stars in that region. None of its stars represents the horn of the unicorn.
The Little Dipper twirls around the northern sky every night of the year. Tonight, the bowl dangles below the handle at nightfall, and stands above the handle at first light.
Kepler-47 is a rare system in which a single planet orbits two stars. It is close to the Northern Cross, which is plunging below the northwestern horizon at sunset. Kapler-47 is off the end of the cross’s right arm, but so faint that you need a telescope to see it.
Venus is the brilliant Morning Star. The planet will stand well to the lower left of the Moon at dawn tomorrow, and closer to the Moon on Wednesday.
The faint constellation Lynx is in the northeast at nightfall, to the upper right of the Big Dipper. Its name is a little joke by its creator — all of its stars are so faint that you need the eyes of a lynx to see them.
The Moon has a giant companion at dawn the next couple of days. The star Antares will be close to the lower left of the Moon tomorrow, and about the same distance to the upper right of the Moon on Monday.
Jupiter is high in the south-southwest at nightfall. The solar system’s largest planet looks like a brilliant star. No other point of light in the sky at that hour outshines it. Binoculars reveal its largest moons, which look like tiny stars near Jupiter.
