Skychart july 14 201712/8/2023 ![]() Shown above is the Jumbo Edition for easier reading in the night. Also plotted are many hundreds of telescopic galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. The Pocket Sky Atlas plots 30,796 stars to magnitude 7.6 - which may sound like a lot, but it's less than one per square degree on the sky. For an easy-to-use constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential guide to astronomy. Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations! They're the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope. And the Great Square of Pegasus, emblem of fall, comes up to balance on one corner just over the eastern horizon. We're only a third of the way through summer, but already W-shaped Cassiopeia, a constellation better known for fall and winter evenings, is climbing up in the north-northeast as evening grows late.It's full of deep-sky objects for binoculars or a telescope - if you have a detailed star atlas to find them with (see below). Catch Scorpius due south just after dark now, before it starts to tilt lower toward the southwest. That means Scorpius has only one really good evening month: July. But Scorpius is a lot lower in the south than Orion for those of us at mid-northern latitudes. Starry Scorpius is sometimes called "the Orion of Summer" for its brightness and its prominent red supergiant (Antares in the case of Scorpius, Betelgeuse for Orion). ![]() The Teapot will tilt farther and farther for the rest of the summer - or for much of the night, if you stay out very late. With the advance of summer, the Sagittarius Teapot, in the south after dark now, is starting to tilt and pour from its spout to the right.Left of the Moon and Venus is 2nd-magnitude El Nath, Beta Tauri. Upper right of them is Aldebaran, and above Aldebaran are the Pleiades. Early in Thursday's dawn, and even a bit earlier, Venus and the waning crescent moon shine together in the east, as shown here.Set your alarm to catch the crescent Moon with Venus early in the dawn of Thursday the 20th. Once the night is completely dark, look for the kite-shaped pattern of Bootes extending upper right from Arcturus. Once you find it, examine the sky 30° above it (three fists at arm's length) for Arcturus, two magnitudes fainter. The first "star" you're likely to see coming out after sunset this month is bright Jupiter, in the southwest.It runs all the way from below Cassiopeia in the north-northeast, up and across Cygnus and the Summer Triangle high in the east below bright Vega, and down past the spout of the Sagittarius Teapot in the south. If you have a dark enough sky, the Milky Way forms a magnificent arch very high across the whole eastern sky after nightfall is complete.daylight-saving time and is high in the southeast by Monday's dawn. The Big Dipper, still high in the northwest after dark, is turning around to "scoop up water" through the evenings of summer and early fall.Can you resolve Mu without using binoculars? It's hard! The Cat's Eyes point west (right) by nearly a fist-width toward Mu Scorpii, a much tighter pair known as the Little Cat's Eyes. They're canted at an angle the cat is tilting his head and winking. These are Lambda and fainter Upsilon Scorpii, known as the Cat's Eyes. Look for the two stars especially close together in the tail. How low depends on how far north or south you live: the farther south, the higher. The tail of Scorpius is low in the south after darkness is complete.One hour after sunset, as twilight is fading deeper and the stars are coming out, you'll find the two brightest stars of summer, Vega and Arcturus, high overhead equally far from the zenith: Vega toward the east, and Arcturus toward the southwest (depending on your location).Your best chance is probably about a half hour after sunset, as shown at right. But it's bright enough (magnitude –0.2 this evening) that you can pick it up anyway if the air is good and clear. Mercury is having a poor apparition low in evening twilight this month.Their visibility in bright twilight is exaggerated here. Binoculars will help with finding Mercury and its fainter neighbors.
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