Caoimhín's Content

As we approach the end of June, we’re going to take a look ahead to what’s coming in July. Of course, at the very beginning, the sky won’t look too different, but we will look through the whole month.

We will still start at the beginning of the month and the beginning of the night, as viewed from the city. By the time the Sun goes down and the sky begins to darken it is already close to half past ten early in the month, but the sky should already be darkening a bit earlier. This let us immediately see Scorpius with Antares right above the South and we can see the summer triangle is reasonably high in the sky above it. The summer triangle is still going to stay with us for pretty much the entire night for the entire month yet as we are still in summertime. Parts of it might start to set but we’re still going to have reasonably short nights for most of July. The summer triangle will reach to the middle of the sky a little after 1 o’clock, still pretty close to being in the middle of the sky at the middle of the night. Saturn will be rising early as well, and by just 2 o’clock we can see Mars as well. Pushing forward to 3 o’clock in the morning, either quite late or quite early depending on your perspective, Saturn will have moved nice and far from sunrise and gotten even higher in the sky. Jupiter comes up just inside Mars, closer to the Sun but not by very much. The Moon will be next to both Mars and Jupiter early in the month, when it will be a pretty narrow crescent.

The morning sky will only improve as we move closer to the middle of July. As we continue to move away form the summer solstice, the sunrise will get later and later, letting us see the planets under darker conditions at the same time of the morning. All of these planets are slowly progressing further across the sky from East to West each night, some faster than others. The darker conditions will make it safer to use a telescope to observe them, and as they get higher in the sky you will need to look through less atmosphere, making them easier and easier to observe. Moving earlier in the night in the middle of the month, we’ll see Saturn, up and visible, as early as midnight. As with any planet, when it first rises it will be reasonably close to the horizon, but it is there, you won’t have to wait all night long for Saturn to come into view. Closer to sunset we’ll see the Moon again, which will be after coming around to the other side of the Sun from it’s morning position at the beginning of the month. The star Antares will have passed the South by the time it actually gets dark enough to see it, even though it is often subtle, what constellations we’re seeing and when we’re seeing them continuously changes, even in the space of just a couple of week. By the middle of the month we’re even starting to see bits of Sagittarius as early as 10:30, so we don’t have to wait particularly late for either of those constellations, or the glow the Milky Way to be in the sky. Of course we won’t see the glow of the Milky Way unless we’re in the countryside, but with those constellations up we know where it should be. Even if you are out to the countryside, this early in the evening, just a little after 10:30, with the Moon in the sky, the Milky Way will still be tricky to see, almost impossible. At least there are plenty of stars up and visible, and because Sagittarius and Scorpius are so clear up above the horizon this early, we know that the Milky Way is passing through the southern horizon this early as well,

Pushing just a little later in the evening, the Moon will leave the sky and the sky will get a little bit darker, letting us see the glow of the Milky Way before midnight. Now that we’ve pushed that little bit further from the summer solstice we can see the glow of the Milky Way just a little bit earlier in the night and under darker conditions. Not only will it be rising a little earlier, but we won’t have as much of a residual glow of sunset around the northern horizon. By the middle of July we’re not really going to get that twilight extending from sunset to sunrise even in the countryside, at least not to the same degree. It’s really as late as the 20th of July that actual night time levels of darkness will return to the south of Ireland. Despite this, it is still likely to continue to get hotter for the next month or so. Moving back towards the morning, now in a dark sky without the city’s light pollution, the planets will look even nicer and be easier to see. It’s also much easier to see the Pleiades, in the countryside they should appear very clearly in the morning, even with some sunrise glow. Jupiter will also look really clear and bright, as early as 2 o’clock in the morning. Just next to Jupiter we can also clearly see the Hyades, particularly the bright red Aldebaran. This all makes it nice and easy to tell which constellation the planets Jupiter and Mars are in, with the Pleiades near Mars and Aldebaran and the Hyades just below Jupiter, they are definitely in Taurus early in the morning here. Pushing closer to the sunrise, out in the countryside it’s only the light of the Sun without the extra light pollution that will obscure things. This means that all of those planets will still be visible as we approach 4 o’clock. By 4 o’clock, Mars will definitely be getting challenging to see, and Saturn will be getting quite faint, but Jupiter is still quite bright and obvious as late as 4 o’clock once we’re through just to the middle of July,

Pushing forward all the way to the end of July, we can see that Jupiter is much higher from the sunrise, but even at the end of the month, I would recommend that if you want to look at Jupiter with a telescope, go earlier in the morning closer to 3 o’clock than 4 o’clock, simply because there is a bit too much light that close to sunrise. We no longer have to worry about going out earlier and earlier each morning, because the sky will be darker at the same time each morning as we move away form the summer solstice. By the 30th and 31st we can see Jupiter, Mars, the Moon, the Pleiades and the Hyades all together in a reasonable level of darkness. We can also see that Jupiter and Mars have gotten closer together, that’s a trend that will continue as we come into August. Eventually, the two planets will end up right on top of each other, but I will talk about that when we are looking all the way into August. By the end of the month the Moon has come back around to the early morning sky, once it’s this close to sunrise it will be a Crescent Moon. At little earlier in the morning at the end of the month, about 3 o’clock, these objects will still be reasonably low in the sky, but they’re high enough to take a closer look with a telescope and they’re free of much sunlight glow. Taking a closer look at these objects all together, the stars will have to compete with the light of the Moon, which is going to make things a little bit more difficult to see. Otherwise, this is a fantastic view, with Jupiter above Aldebaran with the Hyades, Mars, the Moon, the Pleiades, even Uranus is out there. Of course Uranus is practically impossible to see , but with a bit of magnification you might see Uranus as a little bit of a dot though it is very tricky. Moving forward or back a few days removes the Moon form view, letting us see Uranus, with some amount of magnification, a little bit more easily, but if you were just using your eyes it would still be almost impossible to see. The light of the Moon, even when it’s just a crescent, adds a fair amount of light to the sky and that can make quite a bit of a difference, especially to objects that are near it in the sky. Moving our view back towards sunset at end of the month, we’ll see Saturn above the horizon much earlier and we will still see the glow of the Milky Way. The core of our galaxy will be a little further past South again by the time it becomes visible. We can see Saturn just coming into the sky at around 10 o’clock by the end of the month. The glow of the Milky Way won’t quite appear until around a little later, even though the sky will be getting dark earlier, by about 10 o’clock and even at 9 o’clock it will be dark enough to see some stars. The day won’t feel quite as long by the time we’re through to the end of July. Even in the countryside, the sky will still be reasonably bright at 9 o’clock, it will take another month for that to change, but we can see bright stars like Antares and the summer triangle as long as we’re out in the countryside.

Returning to the city once more to look at the end of the month, almost nothing is visible as early as 9 o’clock. Vega is visible, but of course Vega is one of the brightest stars. It is the zero magnitude star, there’s only a few stars brighter than Vega, those marked by negative numbers. We’ll have to wait a little longer in the city for more to come into view a little bit later before we get more stars in the sky, and of course we’re not going to see the Milky Way from the city at all. Saturn will still be coming up basically at 10 o’clock, but you would need a very clear horizon, for example looking out over the ocean towards the southeast. To get a good view of Saturn, it’s better to wait until it is at least a little bit higher in the sky. Not only will it be a little bit darker if you wait a little longer, but as mentioned you will need to look through less atmosphere which will make things look a little bit better. The best time to look at Saturn, or any planet, is when it is close to its peak height in the sky. At the end of the month, Saturn will pretty much reach that peak height before the Sun starts to rise, it will be almost directly above the South at 3 o’clock by the end of the month of July. This means that Saturn is to get easier to observe, which means it will be easier to see its Rings, the moons of Saturn and everything else to do with the second largest planet.

All of those changes of course take place roughly in the south, or at least from northeast to northwest. Turning around to look into the northern sky, at sunset, we can see that at the end of the month The Plough is there on one side, very much to the northwest of the North Star, and Cassiopeia is there over to the northeast on the opposite side. This is similar to how these constellations look once the sky gets dark at the beginning of the month, but of course the sky doesn’t get dark at the same time. If we come all the way back to the start of the month, we can see that sky will get much brighter if we’re keeping the time the same, and the position of the Plough and Cassiopeia will shift. Looking at the start of the month, if we move later in the night, to get the sky reasonably dark, at the beginning of the month you might get a little bit of that twilight glow peeking above the North, and the Plough and Cassiopeia will be either side of the North Star. Moving back to the end of the month keeping the time the same, we’ll get to see that shift in the position of the constellations again and it will stay dark, if not getting a little darker. I talk about this kind of motion a little bit more in one of my recent pieces where I also talk about different ways to measure the day such as the sidereal day, so you can go back to take a look at that if you’d like to learn more.

This is of course just a quick look ahead to July, an overview of what we’re likely to see. I usually cover this kind of thing once a month just before the new month starts, but I will give some updates on the July sky once we’re in July, including a meteor shower. Those will be among the more generally space related pieces, over all making two a week. If you enjoyed this look ahead then you may like my other pieces, and you are more likely to see them if you subscribe to this website or my YouTube channel. Hopefully you do and I’ll see you back here next time.