A look at the deep-sky objects in and around Sagittarius covered in this tour. Objects in white font are covered in this tour. Objects in blue font were covered in the last tour. Click to open in a new tab.

Last week, you began a tour of some of the finer sights in and around the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. This week, let’s look slightly westward to see another handful of splendid sights along the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way. The tour follows the objects in the white font in the above image. Those in blue font were covered in last week’s tour.

The base of operations for this tour is the grand constellation Scorpius, the Scorpion. The long, winding constellation is one of the few that obviously resembles its namesake. The claws of the fearsome celestial arachnid face westward towards the relatively sparse star fields of the constellation Libra. At the heart of the scorpion lies the bright red-orange supergiant star Antares. And to the east lies the winding tail that passes through increasingly rich star fields towards the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy…

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The rich and gauzy star fields along the Milky Way towards the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius constitute what’s arguably the most beautiful part of the night sky. Northern observers can see these constellations well over the southern horizon in the mid-to-late evening hours in August and September, while southern-hemisphere observers see this glorious region nearly overhead. Aim binoculars or a telescope towards this part of the sky, or simply gaze in this direction on a dark night with your unaided eyes, and you will see something good. The trick is figuring out which sight is which. To help you sort it all out, here’s a step-by-step tour of a small selection of the more prominent sights of the deep sky towards the center of the Milky Way…

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Image of the 2015 total solar eclipse over the Faroe Islands. Credit: David Byrne at Flickr.com

2 August. Look for sand-colored Saturn to the south and west of the waxing gibbous Moon, and north and east of the red-orange star Antares. Well past opposition, the planet is still a dazzling sight in a small telescope all month. Its rings are tilted near maximum, about 27º, the greatest in 15 years, and the planet’s disk is still a respectable 18″ across. If you’ve got a telescope, make some time to see Saturn this month. It’s a beautiful sight…

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A delta Aquarid meteor in 2013. Image credit: Mike Lewinski at Flickr.com

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…

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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?”

Oh, it’s real, all right.  And incredibly beautiful… the color, the proportions, the apparent 3D perspective of this grand icy world.  It is arguably the finest sight accessible with a small telescope. The planet reached opposition on June 15, 2017 and will remain bright and large in a telescope over the next few months. Here’s how to find it and see it in a small telescope.

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Hofstra University held their annual Astronomy Festival on the National Mall on June 2, 2017 at the foot of the Washington Monument and adjacent to the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The weather was ideal for stargazing, and the lines were long but enthusiastic behind the telescopes. There were views of the Sun through solar telescopes, the Moon, and Jupiter, as well as displays of science and technology from many educational organizations. It was a fine night of stargazing, and it was heartening to see so many come out to leave aside the distractions of everyday life and enjoy a view of the heavens.

(All images © Brian Ventrudo/CosmicPursuits.com)

Saturn

1 June 2017. First Quarter Moon, 12:42 UT

3 June. A waxing gibbous Moon lies about 2º from the planet Jupiter. For most of June, the big planet lies a fist’s width to the west of the bright star Spica in the constellation Virgo. It’s two months past opposition, so the planet is growing smaller and fainter, yet at magnitude -2.3 to -2.o it still far outshines any star. The planet has been retrograding, which means it’s moving westward each night against the stars. On June 9, it resumes eastward motion once again and moves closer to Spica for the next couple of months….

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A remarkably detailed image of the Sombrero Galaxy (Messier 104) by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/HST.

Striking in photographs and picturesque in a telescope, the Sombrero galaxy offers a fine, if unusual, example of an edge-on spiral galaxy. This is a lovely object, with a huge and brilliant central galactic bulge likely caused by the machinations of a massive black hole, and an inky-dark dust lane that resembles the brim of the traditional Mexican hat that lends its name to this distant island universe…

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A superb image few Eta Aquarid meteors, some random meteors, and a bright Iridium flare taken on May 5, 2013 by David Kingham. This image was captured over three nights with two cameras!

2 May. Look for Venus in the eastern sky about an hour before sunrise. The planet in early May is preposterously bright, shining at about magnitude -4.7, enough to cast a shadow in very dark conditions. At the beginning of the month, in a telescope, you see about 1/4 of the planet’s face lit by the Sun. By the end of the month, you see the planet half lit as it dims slightly to magnitude -4.5. A truly beautiful ‘Morning Star’.

3 May. First-Quarter Moon, 02:47 UT…

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