Caoimhín's Content

Given that the past couple of videos heavily featured objects that at least require a telescope to see, I decided that in this piece I’d go through some of the things visible to just your eyes in later July. Telescopes and binoculars are, of course, wonderfully useful tools for astronomy and reveal a lot that our eyes alone can’t see. However, you certainly don’t need them to enjoy some stargazing.

One of the easiest astronomical targets is the Full Moon, and this month the Moon will reach it’s fullest around the 19th and 20th. Taking a close look at the Moon, the best we get to see is around 99.5% full. The Moon is going to look quite low even in the middle of the night, as we are still very close to summertime. Thanks to the tilt of the Earth’s axis, the ecliptic is going to look very high during the day inn the summer, so the Sun will look very high during the day. At night-time however, the Moon, as well as the planets, if you’re seeing them close to the middle of the night they’re going to be quite low in the sky because the ecliptic is going to be lower. Closer to sunrise, we will have plenty of planets to help us see roughly the path of the ecliptic, Mars and Jupiter close together just above the sunrise, and Saturn a little further across the sky. Saturn gets quite high in the sky as we approach sunrise, as the ecliptic will appear to rise much higher as we approach daytime. When Saturn is at its highest in the South early in the morning, it ends up being higher in the sky than the Full Moon at its highest closer to midnight. Of course, the Moon doesn’t perfectly follow the ecliptic, so there’s a good chance that the Moon is also a little below the actual line of the ecliptic. In principle, there is a difference to be seen, and you can also compare the Full Moons position to the Moon at other times of the month. it does require a closer look at the Moon to see that it isn’t completely full, there’s just a little bit of shadow up along the top left. Moving a day ahead puts the shadow on the other side, and it remains quite small as the Moon is still 99.3% full. This month, like many other months, the fullest point of the Moon won’t necessarily be visible from Ireland.

The Full Moon will be a little closer to the end of the month, on the actual middle of the month, the15th, the Moon will be just a little bit past half, or its first-quarter. By the time the sky is getting truly dark, around 10:45, the Moon will already be rather low to the West. It’s a bit higher in the sky before 10, while the sky is still lit by the glow on sunset. Our nights are still quite short, so even the Half Moon will set reasonably soon after true darkness falls. Unless you’re looking at the Full Moon, which will be with us all night long, it won’t feel like the Moon is with us very long at all. When the Moon is close to full, it adds a lot of extra light to the sky, making it the worst time of the month to look for faint objects in the sky. If you want to see any of the galaxies mentioned in one of my recent videos, or if you’re planning on looking at things with binoculars as in another recent video, the light of the Full Moon will only interfere. Even if you are out into the countryside, given where the the Milky Way is in the sky at the moment it’s going to be very close to the Full Moon. Around June and July in particular, the Core of the Milky Way will be almost directly opposite the Sun, staying with us all night ling, just like the Full Moon. For this reason, they are guaranteed to be very close together. With the light of the Moon almost completely obscuring the glow of The Milky Way, it will certainly obscure many other objects. Given that it’s not the best time to use a telescope or a binoculars, we might as well just use our eyes.

The constellations are one of the easiest features of the sky to observe with just your eyes, as long as you can see the brighter stars you’ll catch the more prominent constellations. There are a few constellations that I mention all of the time. The three constellations that hold the corners of the asterism of the Summer Triangle get mentioned quite a lot. There’s Cygnus the Swan with Deneb, Lyra the Lyre with Vega and Aquilla the Eagle with Altair. A similarly useful asterism in the sky is the Square of Pegasus, it is useful for finding the Andromeda Galaxy and so it get’s a lot of attention as well. Similarly, some of the norther constellations, like Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, are connected with the Plough or Big Dipper and the North Star, famously useful in navigation. There are some less famous constellations that are also reasonably easy to spot. For example Hercules, is just next to Vega and Lyra. It famously contains a very clear globular cluster, the Great Cluster or Great Globular Cluster, which is actually is itself a good target for binoculars. Sticking to the naked eye, the body of Hercules is a smallish, roughly trapezoidal shape. The actual lines of the constellation include a bunch of limbs stretching out from the corners, and they are the limbs of Hercules, usually depicted with the Many Headed-Hydra wrapped around him. It’s a particularly famous Greek legend, so it’s a nice constellation to be able to spot.

Turning around to the North, Cassiopeia gets talked about a lot, for it’s usefulness in finding the Andromeda Galaxy, but also the deep sky objects it contains. There’s a few other major constellations up in it’s direction, such as Cepheus, which isn’t too hard to spot. Cepheus looks at like a simplified drawing of a house, it has that square base and triangular “roof”, a very typical house shape. However, it is meant to be a person sitting on a throne, King Cepheus with Queen Cassiopeia, they are part of the same Ancient Greek myth. Moving to the opposite side of Ursa Minor and the North Star we have Draco, Draco the Dragon. It is quite a big constellation and in a very popular area of the sky, snaking around the North Star, but Draco doesn’t get as much attention as the other constellations in this area. Without lines or images to help, the shape of Draco isn’t super distinct, it’s just a wavy line of stars going up across the sky, making it a very easy constellation to lose track of. Even though it is quite big, the stars involved aren’t that bright, especially compared to the nearby stars in Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, whose main stars are much much brighter,

Moving closer to morning time, there are a couple of famous constellations that were hidden for a few months coming up or getting a little bit easier to see. Close to Jupiter and Mars we have Aldebaran in the head of Taurus, as well as the bright Capella in Auriga, which is a nice pentagonal constellation, a very easy shape to recognise. Between Auriga and Cassiopeia is Perseus, which is a kind of fin shape. Perseus can be a little bit tough to spot sometimes because it doesn’t look like a mythical hero, it doesn’t look like a person. The of fin-like shape of Perseus may not be as obvious as a W or a pentagon shape, but its location between those two more recognisable shapes helps. Just a little south of Taurus we can see Cetus as well, Cetus the Great Whale. It’s also not the easiest constellation to spot, despite its size. Just above Cetus is Aries the ram, which despite being a very famous constellation, can also be pretty tricky to see due its small size. Moving all the way to the end of the month, the Moon will be more out of the way especially a bit closer to the middle of the night. In the morning at the very end of the month, we can just about see the top of Orion and the top Gemini. As long as you’re out in the countryside, those constellations will start to come into view again. Thanks to the brightness of the stars, like Betelgeuse, Pollux and Castor, they are more likely to stand out against the glow of sunrise. Even though they are constellations we would normally associate with winter, and they do look their best in winter, you can start to see them early in the morning as we come to the end of July,

Moving into the middle of the night at the end of the month, with the Full Moon out of the picture, the lovely glow of the Milky Way will be a lot more prominent. As usual, we’re going to have the famous constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpius popping just above the horizon either side of the Milky Way’s core. Earlier in the evening, the bright star Arcturus will be visible above the sunset in Böötes, and the kind of kite-like shape of Böötes should be visible in the countryside even with some sunset glow. It won’t be in the sky, it’s already quite close to sunset so it is going to be disappearing rather soon. Closer to the horizon than Böötes is Virgo, with the bright star Spica standing out against the sunset, but again very much leaving the sky. Leo has practically left the sky, you can just about see the Tail of the Lion just above sunset. Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, is just between Böötes and Hercules, and this is where we should see an extra star before the end of the year. In fact, especially if you’re out in the countryside, early in the evening might be a good time to look for the supernova expected to occur in Corona Borealis this year. Particularly under dark conditions, even without the lines, you can just about see a C-shaped ring, with a very empty region immediately to its East. It is in that empty region where a new star should suddenly appear as a faint star suddenly becomes bright in a recurring nova. It could be useful to familiarise yourself with this region of the sky, as that’s where we’re going to have to take a look for the nova in the near future. The Summer Triangle will continue to dominate the evening sky as we are still very much in summertime. There are also a couple of less famous constellations coming up earlier in the evening, such as Ophiuchus with Serpens Cauda and Serpens Caput. Ophiuchus is the Snake Bearer, with the Head of Snake (Serpens Caput) on one side and the Tail of the Snake (Serpens Cauda) on the other. Ophiuchus is reasonably well known as the 13th zodiacal constellation, or sign of the Zodiac, though it is mostly faint stars. In between all of those famous constellations, above Sagittarius and next to Aquila, we’ve got Scutum. Scutum the Shield is home to UY Scuti, one of the largest stars discovered. It isn’t the largest star, but has been known to be a large for quite some time, while the size larger stars such as VY Canis Majoris are known with less certainty. Scutum contains some interesting deep sky objects, thanks to it’s position in the glow of the Milky Way, but it is composed of very faint stars and doesn’t have a very clear shape. However, it is there, just above Sagittarius if you do ever need to find it,

I hope you enjoyed this quick overview of some of the things you can enjoy in the night sky without using a telescope or binoculars. I hope you get a chance to see some of these constellations as we get through to the end of July, and I especially hope that you get to spot some of the returning constellations if you’re out enjoying the sunrise. If you did enjoy this piece, you can subscribe to this website, or my YouTube channel, or both, to be in with the best chance of catching the next one. However you make it back, I hope to see you here next time.