Monthly Night Sky information provided by Chris Vaughan (@Astrogeoguy) at Starry Night Education (@StarryNightEdu).
After dusk in mid-July, the first stars to appear in the darkening eastern sky are Vega, Deneb, and Altair. Those three bright, white stars form the Summer Triangle asterism – an annual feature of the summer sky that remains visible until the end of December! The highest and most easterly of the trio is Vega, […]
On Monday morning, July 14, the regular eastward motion of Saturn through the background stars of western Pisces will slow to a stop as it prepares to execute a westerly retrograde loop (red curve) that will last until the end of November. The apparent reversal in Saturn’s motion is an effect of parallax produced when […]
A short time after the bright, waning gibbous moon clears the treetops in the east around midnight on Tuesday evening, July 15, the prominent, yellowish dot of Saturn will climb to join it – close enough to the moon for them to share the view in binoculars (orange circle). The very faint blue planet Neptune […]
The moon will complete three quarters of its orbit around Earth, measured from the previous new moon, on Thursday, July 17 at 8:38 p.m. EDT or 5:38 p.m. PDT, which converts to Friday at 02:52 GMT. At the third (or last) quarter phase the moon appears half-illuminated on its western, sunward side. It will rise […]
After dusk in mid-July, the distinctive constellation of Scorpius, the Scorpion reaches its peak elevation over the southern horizon. The constellation’s brightest star is orange-tinted Antares, the “Rival of Mars”. Several medium-bright, white stars arranged in a roughly vertical line to the west of Antares mark the creature’s claws on modern sky charts; however, the […]