{"id":429,"date":"2019-06-26T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=429"},"modified":"2020-10-01T03:44:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T03:44:03","slug":"july-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/july-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"July 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mercury\nand Mars are paired in the dusky glow at the start of July. The moon\npasses by on the 3rd<\/sup>.\nYou don’t get many more evenings to see Mercury though. It quickly\ndrops below Mars and sets too soon after sunset to be seen. Mercury\nis at inferior conjunction on the 20th<\/sup>.\nYou don’t have a lot of evenings to see Mars either. It’s also\nretreating into the sunset. If not for the twilight, the red planet\nmight be an awesome sight in the Beehive cluster on the 13th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jupiter\nand Saturn are up in the southeast already as darkness begins. The\nred star right of Jupiter is Antares. Saturn remains near the teapot\nlid of Sagittarius. The moon passes by Jupiter on the 13th<\/sup>.\nThen it goes by Saturn two nights later. Both planets are retrograde.\nThat means they’re moving westward on the background of stars behind\nthem. They are slowly moving, but with careful comparisons you should\nbe able to see the movement over the span of several nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saturn’s motion is\neasier to spot because it is near an easily seen star. Albaldah is\nabout 510 light years away. Saturn is a mere 9 astronomical units\naway. Another way of putting it, although the planet and the star are\nnext to each other in our sky, the star is about 3.58 million times\nas far away from us. Or to use light time, Saturn is 1 hour, 14\nminutes, 50 seconds away from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe morning sky, Venus is close to the horizon and recessing into the\nsunrise. The moon is right of the planet on the 1st<\/sup>.\nBecause Venus is so bright, you won’t have much trouble finding it\nduring the first half of the month as long as your horizon is clear.\nYou probably won’t see many, if any, of the stars of Gemini behind it\nthough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earth\nis at aphelion on the 4th<\/sup>,\nat a distance of 1.017 astronomical units. Mercury is at aphelion at\nthe 7th<\/sup>\nat 0.467 au from the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nnew moon is also at northern lunistice on the 2nd<\/sup>.\nPerigee on the 5th<\/sup>\nis 363,700 km distant center-to-center. The moon crosses the equator\ngoing south on the 9th<\/sup>\nwhen it’s at first quarter. Southern lunistice is on the 15th<\/sup>,\nfollowed by full moon on the 16th<\/sup>.\nSo expect a southerly full moon. The moon goes north again on the\n23rd<\/sup>.\nLast quarter is on the 25th<\/sup>.\nNorthern lunistice occurs again on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
NASA visibility map for the July 2, 2019 total solar eclipse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The southern Pacific Ocean and South America get a solar eclipse on July 2. The path of totality crosses Chile and Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
NASA info on the July 16, 2019 lunar eclipse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A partial lunar eclipse will be visible on July 16 from most or all of South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. From 20:01 UT to 23:00 UT, the northern half of the moon will pass through the earth’s shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some notable\nconjunctions this month:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5th<\/sup>\nMercury and Mars, 3.8\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21st<\/sup>\nMercury at inferior conjunction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22nd<\/sup>\nVenus and Pollux, 6.0\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25th<\/sup>\nMercury and Venus, 5.6\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other conjunctions\ninvolving the moon and various objects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st<\/sup>\nVenus, 1.6\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3rd<\/sup>\nPollux, 6.1\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4th<\/sup>\nMars, 0.1\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4th<\/sup>\nMercury, 3.2\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6th<\/sup>\nRegulus 3.1\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9th<\/sup>\nSpica 7.3\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12th<\/sup>\nCeres 2.9\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13th<\/sup>\nAntares 7.8\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13th<\/sup>\nJupiter 2.3\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16th<\/sup>\nSaturn 0.2\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21st<\/sup>\nNeptune 3.6\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25th<\/sup>\nUranus 4.5\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26th<\/sup>\nVesta 2.3\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

28th<\/sup>\nAldebaran 2.2\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31st<\/sup>\nMercury 4.5\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31st<\/sup>\nPollux 6.1\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31st<\/sup>\nVenus 0.6\u00b0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The moon will pass in front of Saturn on the 16th for viewers in the southern Pacific Ocean and South America. The time of the central conjunction is 07:15 Universal Time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Careful viewers may see a daytime occultation of Venus on the 31st. You need to be in northeast Asia and northern parts of North America. The central conjunction time is 20:36 UT. Venus can be seen during daylight. But since Venus is so close to the sun on the day of conjunction, one must be very cautious not to accidentally look at the sun while waiting for the planet to disappear and reappear. This is probably not a daytime occultation for beginners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the later half\nof July, try watching for Delta Aquariid meteors. You’ll need to look\nbetween midnight and dawn. The meteors appear to come from a star\nnamed Skat in Aquarius. The peak date is around July 30. You may see\n15 to 20 meteors per hour. Comet 96P\/Machholz is the parent. Its\nperiod is 5.29 years. The comet was last at perihelion in October\n2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"


Left to right: Neil Armstrong<\/a>, Michael Collins<\/a>, Buzz Aldrin<\/a>

Image from Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This month marks\n50 years since men first walked on the moon. Apollo 11 launched on\nJuly 16, 1969. Four days later, the lunar module named Eagle landed\non the moon. It was July 21 Universal Time (still July 20 in the\nUnited States) when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto\nthe moon’s surface. The astronauts returned to Earth on July 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Armstrong\nand Aldrin got the thrill of walking on the moon and typically get\nall the attention for being the first to do it, their feat happened\nbecause of the efforts of thousands of men and women who put\ncountless hours into studying everything astronauts could need in\nspace and determining what it would take to get to the moon. The most\nimportant person on the Apollo 11 mission was arguably the one who\ndidn’t get to set foot on the lunar surface. Michael Collins manned\nthe command module as it went round the far side of the moon. His job\nwas to keep everything working and in the proper orbit to rendezvous\nwith Armstrong and Aldrin as the lunar module left the moon’s\nsurface. And then all three could return to Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercury and Mars are paired in the dusky glow at the start of July. The moon passes by on the 3rd. You don’t get many more evenings to see Mercury though. It quickly drops below Mars and sets too soon after sunset to be seen. Mercury is at inferior conjunction on the 20th. You don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}