The night sky has made its transition from spring to summer, and the bright stars and faint star clouds along the spine of the Milky Way are turning into view in the late evening hours. Saturn is still magnificent over the southern horizon, Venus and Mercury make an appearance at opposite ends of the sky, and July presents your last chance to get a good look at Jupiter before it gets too low in the southwest. There’s also a southern meteor shower this month, one with meteors that enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a shallow angle and leave long, lingering trails in the warm summer sky.
1 July. First Quarter Moon, 00:51 UT
1 July. The first quarter Moon joins Jupiter and the bright star Spica in the southwestern sky. Jupiter is west of Spica and much brighter. This is more or less the last month to get a good view of the planet as it continues to fade, grow smaller, and appear lower in the southern or southwestern sky during July. It’s still brighter than any star and a beautiful sight in a small telescope.
3 July. Earth reaches aphelion, its furthest point from the Sun in its orbit. Today the planet lies 152,092,504 km (94,505,901 miles) from the Sun [Read more…] about The Sky This Month – July 2017
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Many casual observers get hooked on amateur astronomy after a first look at Saturn through a telescope. More than a few have looked through my small refractor on a night of good seeing and asked of Saturn, “Is it real?”
