Mercury is at greatest elongation east on the 8th, which is its furthest angular distance from the sun. Shining at magnitude +0.5, it is still only 2 degrees below much brighter magnitude -3.9 Venus. At the same time, a thin slice of crescent Moon is about the same distance above Venus.
Little Mercury is soon-thereafter gone from sight, while Venus remains stationary. The rest of the sky, however, moves past it a little at a time. The daily motion of the stars is easiest seen by watching Regulus, the bright star at the heart of Leo, approach Venus. They in are conjunction - their nearest to each other - on the 2nd, separated by 1.1 degrees.
Mars grows brighter in Pisces this month, and is highest in the sky near dawn.
Jupiter, in Virgo, is in the southwestern sky all month. If you've never used binoculars or a small telescope to watch its moons, this is a good time. Of course, with a large telescope you can see a whole lot more, but with the small optical stuff you can observe the moons' movements from one night to the next, or even during the course of the night.
The Moon, which has already loitered in the vicinity of Venus and Mercury, does the same with bright orange Antares on the 17/18th. Most of North America will see a near miss, while much of the southern U.S. will get to see an occultation.
...And as always, I urge you to spend every clear, moonless, or mostly moonless night of July beneath the stars, counting and plotting and recording meteors. The beginning of the month and the end of the month offer the best opportunities. You'll see the ebb and flow of the Aquarids, which have peaks in late July and early August; you'll catch the peak of the often very, very bright but not very numerous Alpha Capricornids around the 30th; you may catch a few of the more southerly Piscis-Austrinids, which peak on the 28th, and you'll witness the slow rise of the Perseids, from a handful each night early in July to more than ten per hour by the end of the month. (The "official" start date of this shower is still listed as July 17th, but after fifteen years of dedicated, exhausting, mind-numbing sleepless nights during the 80s and 90s, I can tell you they start about a week earlier.) And there will be the usual odds and ends that happen every night. If you do this throughout July and August, you might end up with 1,000 meteors under your belt.
Go To Page: 1 2
