The Moon begins as a fat waxing crescent,
and with the passage of first
quarter around noon (near Moonrise) on Monday, July 3,
continues during the rest of the week as a waxing gibbous. Two days before the quarter, it
passes through apogee,
where it is farthest from the Earth. While watching fireworks the
night of Tuesday the 4th, you might also admire the Moon as it
stands just to the east of Spica
and just south of a line between the star and Jupiter. As
the sky darkens the following night (Wednesday the 5th), the Moon
will be in conjunction with (and about 5 degrees south of) the
giant planet.
The next day, Thursday the 6th, Jupiter ceases
retrograde motion (westerly against the stars) and begins to
move back in its normal easterly direction. On the Libra-Virgo border and not setting until 2 AM, Jupiter
dominates the western skies,
Saturn and then
Mars disappearing by 10:30 or so.
The evening of Sunday the 2nd presents us with a lovely stellar-
planetary lineup. As twilight dims, start with Mercury close to the
western horizon and then continue up and to the left to Saturn
(still stuck near Cancer's Beehive), through Mars (which, now
near the Cancer-Leo border, is
separating nicely from the ringed planet), and ending in Regulus in Leo. The morning of
Sunday the 2nd will be pretty nifty too, as you can then see Venus
(rising as dawn begins at 3:30 AM) pass four degrees north of Aldebaran in Taurus (note the pronounced color
contrast).
Monday the 3rd gives us a terrestrial special, as the Earth passes
aphelion, when and where it is farthest from the Sun, 152,095,745 kilometers (94,507,915
miles), 1.7 percent farther than average. Since we in North
America are in summer's highest heat, distance clearly has nothing
to do with the seasons, which are caused entirely by the 23.4
degree axial tilt relative to the orbital perpendicular.
Two glorious icons of the sky are near their peaks, Ursa Major's Big Dipper in the northern hemisphere, Crux (the Southern Cross) in the
southern (which is fully visible only below about 25 degrees south
latitude). Following along behind the Dipper is Bootes, the Herdsman, while following
behind the Cross are the bright first magnitude stars of Centaurus, Alpha Cen (the closest star system to the Earth) and
Hadar (Beta). To the south and
east of these, southerners can admire the modern constellation Circinus (the pair of Compasses),
which with Norma (the Square, originally the "Level and Square")
gives us a fine set of celestial tools.
