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July 2007 Eye on the Sky
Contributed by: Mike Hotka on 6/24/2007

July starts out with a very nice close pairing of the planets Venus and Saturn. About an hour after sunset on the 1st, cast your gaze high in the western sky to find the brilliant Venus, shining to the lower left of, and just 0.8 degrees from the much dimmer Saturn.

As July progresses, watch Venus and Saturn separate in the sky. Venus then closes in on the bright star Regulus, in the constellation Leo, the Lion. On July 12th, Venus will be just below this 1st magnitude star and just 1 2/3 degrees from it.

To make these celestial alignments more spectacular, a young crescent Moon joins these 3 objects on the night of July 16th, when the Moon will have Saturn to its right, and Venus and Regulus to its left.

While you are attending your favorite Fourth of July fireworks celebration waiting for the show to begin, as the sky darkens, look high in the western sky to find the planet Venus. You can spot it fairly soon after the Sun sets. It will be a bright point of light that gets brighter and easier to see as the sky darkens.

Once you find Venus, cast your gaze high in the south-southeastern sky to find the planet Jupiter. It might take a bit more twilight to occur before you spot this planet, but shining at a magnitude of -2.5, it too can be spotted long before twilight ends.

Now that you have found Venus and Jupiter in the evening twilight, look directly overhead to find a very red-orange star shining. This is the star Arcturus, in the constellation Bootes, the Herdsman. Another star, shining in the twilight will be low in the northeastern sky. This blue-white star, Vega, in the constellation Lyra, the Lyre, is as different from Arcturus as stars get.

Stars get their color by the temperature of their stellar surface. The hotter the star, like Vega, the more blue-white it shines. The cooler the star, like Arcuturus, the redder it shines. Our Sun, if seen from a distance, would have an off-white, almost yellow color. But cooler is a relative term. Arcturus still has a surface temperature of about 6000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Back to planets. Mars rises in the east-northeastern sky about 2 AM as July begins. By the end of the month, Mars will be close to the open star cluster, the Pleiades. Shining at a magnitude of +0.5, Mars has an unmistakable red color to it.

Last, but not least, the planet Mercury, after making a grand appearance in the evening sky early last month, now can be found in the morning sky. From July 18th to the 28th, find Mercury about 10 degrees above the east-northeastern horizon about an hour before sunrise. Bring binoculars to help find this closest planet to the Sun.

Every Friday night of June, on the CU Boulder campus, the Fiske Planetarium is having a wonderful show, followed by telescope viewing at the Sommers-Bausch Observatory, weather permitting. The planetarium show begins at 8:00 PM. For more information, visit the web site http://lyra.colorado.edu/sbo/public/openhouse.html or call 303-492-5002.

Rocky Mountain National Park is hosting their Summer Star Party in the Upper Beaver Meadows trailhead area and is open to the public. The star party starts at 9:00 PM MDT and will occur on the evenings of July 6th and 20th. Contact RMNP at 970-586-1206 for details.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Mike Hotka

Broomfield , CO

Mike Hotka has posted 49 stories and 0 comments since joining on 11/30/2005. Mike Hotka 's average story rating is 4.95.
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