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 is moving into Libra, the balance scales. Libra’s two brightest stars are close to the Moon this evening. Originally, the stars formed the claws of the scorpion. Even today, their names represent that heritage: Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi, the northern and southern claws.
The Moon has a bright companion tonight: Spica, the brightest star of the constellation Virgo. Spica is quite close to the lower right of the Moon. The bright Moon washes out the star’s pale blue color.
Messier 10, one of the closest of the Milky Way’s giant globular star clusters, is near the middle of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, which is in the southeast at nightfall. Messier 10 is a family of hundreds of thousands of stars, and lies just 15,000 light-years away.
Deneb, the star that marks the tail of Cygnus, the swan, is in the northeast at nightfall, at the left point of the bright Summer Triangle. It’s a supergiant star that’s perhaps 2,600 light-years away, making it one of the most-distant stars visible to the unaided eye.
Cygnus, the swan, soars high overhead on summer nights. It’s in the east and northeast in early evening. The swan’s body is roughly parallel to the horizon, with its wings extended above and below. The bright star Deneb marks its tail, with the double star Albireo at its beak.
Jupiter is staging a grand appearance in the early morning sky. The solar system’s largest planet is in the east at dawn, and looks like a brilliant star. In all the night sky, only the Moon and the planet Venus outshine it.
Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, is close to the Moon tonight. Regulus is a system of four stars. But one of them, known as, Regulus Aa, gets all of the attention. It’s much bigger, brighter, and heavier than the Sun, and it’s the only member of the system we can see without a telescope.
Summer arrives today at 9:58 a.m. CDT, which is the moment of the June solstice. For the northern hemisphere, the Sun stands highest in the sky for the entire year. The solstice is the longest day of the year, so there’s more time to enjoy our high-climbing star.
The Moon has some prominent companions the next few nights. Tonight, Venus, the Evening Star, stands to its upper left. Fainter orange Mars is farther along the same line, with Regulus, the heart of the lion, farther still. The twins of Gemini are close to the lower right of the Moon.
Draco, the dragon, slithers across the north on summer nights. It is high in the sky as darkness falls. It looks like a faint trail of stars wrapping around the North Star, Polaris.
