What's Up in the Night Sky

July 2026 - Vol. 30, No. 7

This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

Bright blue-white Vega (Lyra) shines high overhead as it "leads" the Summer Triangle across the night sky. The "Triangle" is the Summer’s most prominent asterism and is made up of three stars: Vega, the brightest, Deneb (Cygnus) and Altair (Aquila). In the southwest, Arcturus (Bootes) is dropping towards the horizon as Spica (Virgo) vanishes from sight below. Also look for Antares (Scorpius) low in the South. The stars of constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius, embedded in the Summer "Milky Way" are at their best this month. Look for another popular asterism, "The Teapot", made up of the brightest stars of Sagittarius. Also the "Great Square of Pegasus" now appears on the Eastern horizon just before the onset of morning twilight. These are the stars of autumn that will take over when the northern summer wanes!

MERCURY reaches inferior conjunction on the 13th and will not be seen. VENUS grows in brightness this month while it loses altitude. MARS rises in the morning twilight for northern observers. The red planet makes a close pass of Uranus when the two planets are 7' away on the 4th. JUPITER reaches solar conjunction on July 29, making it a hard target this month. SATURN, is rising around midnight. The ringed planet reaches its first stationary point on the 27th and begins retrograde motion. URANUS, rises in the morning sky. NEPTUNE, rises just after midnight, reaching its first stationary point on the 8th and beginning retrograde motion.

Review how to determine Angular Measurement.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time. Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or the internet for sunrise and sunset times. Find the current information at the U.S. Naval observatory. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

DATE	EVENT
01	Mercury at aphelion.
04	Mars 0.1 deg. S. of Uranus.
06	Earth at aphelion.
08	Neptune stationary.
09	Venus 1.1 deg. N. of Regulus.
10	Moon in the Pleiades star cluster (M-45).
11	Mars 5 deg. S. of Moon.
13	Mercury at inferior conjunction. Moon at perigee.
15	Moon 0.5 deg. N. of the Beehive (M-44).
17	Alpha Leonis, Regulus, 0.5 deg. N. of Moon, occultation from most of Micronesia, Melanesia, northeastern Australia, most of Polynesia (except Hawaii and New Zealand.) Venus 2 deg N. of the Moon.
21	Mercury at at greatest heliocentric lat. S.
23	Mercury stationary.
24	Alpha Scorpii, Antares, 0.6 deg. N. of Moon, occultation from southern South America, northern Antarctica, Kerguelen Is.
27	Saturn reaches its first stationary point.
29	S. Delta Aquariid meteors peak, this shower produces up to 20 meteors at its peak. This month's full Moon is often called the "Buck Moon" as it is the time that buck deer grow new antlers in North America. Jupiter in conjunction with the Sun.

Lunar Almanac for July 2026

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 14	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 21	Planets & Moon
	Full 29	Moon
	Last Qtr 07	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer

The Summer sky merits a good long look into Ophiuchus, the constellation of the serpent bearer. It is called this because it splits the constellation of Serpens into two parts. Owing to its lack of bright stars, (none over 2nd magnitude) and its unpronounceable name (O-fee-u-kus), this constellation may remain obscure to casual observers.

Ophiuchus is generally identified with Aesculapius, a mythological doctor. The staff of Aesculapius wrapped with serpents is a well-known medical symbol. A good deal of this constellation is on the ecliptic (more than Scorpius), and its field is resplendent with globular clusters, because it lies near the center of our galaxy.

Two fine globular clusters, visible in the same wide angle field, M-10 and M-12 are beautiful specimens. M-12 is closer, larger and looser than M-10. The other Messier globulars in Ophiuchus include M-14, M-19, M-62 and M-107, but these are not as spectacular as the first two.

Ophiuchus also contains some beautiful star clusters, notably NGC 6633 which contains about 65 stars of 7th magnitude, and IC 4665, a loose cluster of 7th magnitude stars that is quite nice in binoculars or a wide angle telescopic eyepiece.

Venus on May 8, 2023 — Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer

Nor is Ophiuchus without double stars. Tau Ophiuchi is a close pair of stars, mag 5.3 and 6.0, that require at least 75 mm of aperture to separate. 36 Oph contains two orange dwarf stars shining at 5.3 magnitude. 70 Oph is more well known, once suspected of harboring planets. It is a color contrasting double with orange and yellow components that need 100 mm of aperture, high power and good seeing to separate. William Herschel proved that the two stars were orbiting a common center, providing proof that Newton's law of gravitation worked outside of the solar system

Ophiuchus also contains more than a few planetary nebulae, the best of these is probably NGC 6572, 10th magnitude. Perhaps the most celebrated of all objects in this fascinating constellation is Barnard's Star, the star with the highest proper motion of all known stars. Barnard's star does have at least one planet, it is a red dwarf and at 9.5 magnitude it can't be seen without a telescope.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac

The IAU Ophiuchus chart is courtesy of the International Astronomical Union and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg) This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. It has been modified for use on Astra's Stargate. The file is available at Wikimedia Commons with full license details.