A close pairing of Mars and Uranus gives us a red and blue Independence Day treat, Venus passes Regulus in the evening, Mercury moves to the morning, Pluto at opposition, and a pair of Mooned-out meteor showers all highlight the night sky in July.
Sun
Earth is at aphelion, the most distant point in its orbit around the Sun, at 1:31 pm on the 6th. At a distance of 1.01664397604307 au, we are 3.391% more distant than we were on January 3rd. This difference amounts to 14.1 times the average distance to the Moon, or 16.9 light seconds.
July 11 is the last day with 15 hours of daylight.
The Sun begins a 21-day trek through Cancer on the 20th.
The Sun is six minutes and 33 seconds slow on the 26th, as the equation of time reaches its minor minimum for the year. A result of Earth’s elliptical orbit causing a discrepancy between the apparent solar day and the mean solar day, this “slowness” of the Sun is the reason why the later sunsets extend well into July.
Moon
The Moon is last quarter at 3:29pm on the 7th.
On the 11th, the 13.4% illuminated waning crescent Moon joins Mars, Uranus, and the Pleiades in the predawn sky.
The Moon is new at 5:32am on the 14th, marking the beginning of Lunation 1281. The next new Moon, on August 12, will deliver a partial solar eclipse to us here in the Northeastern US.
Just fifteen hours after July’s new Moon, try to spot the very young, 0.5% illuminated crescent and Jupiter in the west-northwestern sky, both setting just about a half hour after sunset.
The 9.5% crescent Moon joins Regulus, in Leo, on the 16th, and is 5.5° southeast of Venus on the 17th.
On the 20th, the nearly first quarter Moon is 2.8° south-southwest of Spica (α Virginis).
The Moon is first quarter at 7:05 am on the 21st, in Virgo.
On the 24th, the 82.3% gibbous Moon is 2.3° SE of Antares (α Scorpii), but before the Sun sets, here’s a chance to test your ability to observe a moderately bright star during daylight, as the Moon occults magnitude 2.8 Paikauhale (τ Scropii).
The star winks out behind the southern limb of the Moon at 8:08pm, just four minutes before sunset. Since it is easy to find the gibbous Moon during daylight, point a medium-to-large aperture telescope at the Moon well in advance of sunset and use high magnification to look in the area just beyond the Moon’s dark western limb, just east of the lunar south pole. The star reappears 52 minutes after the occultation begins, about halfway from the southern limb to the equator.
Paikauhale, which some older sources refer to as Al Niyat, is a class B0 main sequence star 470 light years away that has 15 times the mass of the Sun, and shines with 18,000 times its luminosity. About midway through its lifecycle, Paikauhale will end as a supernova in six or seven million years.
July’s full Moon, the Buck Moon, is on the 28th at 10:36am. It rises at 7:57pm, eleven minutes before sunset. It transits at 12:35am on the 29th, culminating at 25.1° over the southern horizon in Capricornus. While this is not as far south as June’s Strawberry Moon, it still hangs quite low in the sky, especially during the days leading up to its full phase.
The Buck Moon sets at 5:22am on the 29th, less than 20 minutes before sunrise.
Mercury
Following one of its best evening apparitions of 2026, Mercury is at inferior conjunction on the 13th, and returns to the morning sky, where it will be visible one hour before sunrise beginning on the 25th. Watch the fleeting planet move through its waxing crescent phase with a telescope.
Venus
Venus is the most prominent object in the evening sky during July. Shining at a brilliant magnitude -4.2, it is moving eastward through Leo at 1.1° per day. From July 6, it will be closer than 1 au from Earth, and will display a distinctly narrow 66.9% illuminated gibbous phase at a sizable 16.7 arcseconds, almost as large as the globe of Saturn.
Venus passes 1.0° east-northeast of Regulus on the 9th. Lying at a distance of 79 light years, Regulus is 5.1 million times farther away than Venus, whose light takes just 8.1 minutes to reach us. To put this in a scale that’s easier to visualize, if you were standing in Providence and holding Venus at arm’s length, Regulus would be in Los Angeles, California.
Venus surpasses the apparent diameter of Saturn, at 18.0 arcseconds, on the 15th, and exhibits a 63.2% illuminated gibbous, which will be obvious even in a small instrument.
On the 16th, the 9.5% waxing crescent Moon, 1.0° south of Regulus, appears 7.8° west of Venus. The following evening, it is 5.5° southeast of Venus.
At the end of July, Venus will grow to nearly 21 arcseconds, and its gibbous disk will be just under 56% illuminated.
Mars
Last month we had a spectacular conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, the most spectacular of planet pairings. July gives us a conjunction of Mars and Uranus, notable not for how bright the two planets are, but for their contrasting colors. Mimicking the patriotic colors of the American flag, the fourth and seventh planets will be separated by just 7 arcminutes, just under ¼ of the apparent size of the Moon, of each other, on the morning of Independence Day, July 4. Unfortunately, the pair remains relatively low in the east-northeast before the onset of astronomical twilight at 3:08am, so a larger telescope will be needed to view them, but they should remain visible as they rise higher before the onset of nautical twilight two minutes before four. However, due to their low elevation, the colors may be distorted by prismatic effects of shining through six times the airmass of an object shining at the zenith.
When gazing at the two planets together, Uranus will be nearly ten times the distance from us than Mars, but the blueish ice giant will be only one arcsecond smaller than ruddy Mars.
Mars and Uranus will remain within the same telescopic field of view for a few days before and after the closest conjunction, with Mars moving east-northeastward relative to Uranus at ⅔° per day.
Mars’s proximity to the Pleiades cluster during its conjunction with Uranus also makes it a worthy sight in binoculars during the early days of July.
On the 11th, the 13.4% waning crescent Moon joins Mars, Uranus, and the Pleiades in what promises to be a stunning photo capture, along with Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster nearby.
The Red Planet passes over Aldebaran mid-month, with a minimum distance of 5.3° from Taurus’s alpha star on the 13th. On the 16th, Mars lies on the line between Aldebaran and Capella (α Aurigae)
During the closing days of July, Mars approaches our closest dwarf planet, Ceres, with the pair being just 3° apart on the last morning of the month.
Jupiter
Jupiter departs the evening sky in July, but observers with a clear west-northwestern horizon will be able to watch the king of the planets after sunset for a few days early in the month. On the 14th, look for Jupiter very low in the west-northwest after sunset, with the 0.5% illuminated crescent Moon just 2.4° to the northwest.
Jupiter is in conjunction on the 29th. The giant planet returns to the morning sky in August, when it will be joined by Mercury.
Saturn
Saturn, with its ring plane tilted by 11°, is in Pisces, near the border with Cetus, and is visible after midnight. It reaches western quadrature on the 6th.
On the 6th-7th, the last quarter Moon is 6.8% west-northwest of Saturn, and again after midnight on the 8th, find the 45.6% waning crescent 8.5° north-northeast of the planet.
Saturn returns to the evening sky in mid-July, rising before midnight for the first time on the 14th.
Saturn is stationary on the 27th, and will appear to be moving westward (retrograde) through December 11.
Uranus
Located in Taurus, Uranus rises before the onset of astronomical twilight, but remains low until later in the month. It can be found about 5.5° southeast of the Pleiades, almost directly in line and halfway between the cluster and Aldebaran (α Tauri).
To locate the seventh planet, start with Atlas, the easternmost of the Pleiades’s brightest member stars, and move 4° to the east-southeast, to 4th magnitude 37 Tauri. Continuing ⅓ of a Moon diameter to the east-southeast, away from the Pleiades, you should see the 5.9 magnitude star 39 Tauri. Note this star is approximately the same magnitude as Uranus.
From this pair, move 4° to the south-southeast, an angle about 45° from the line back to the Pleiades, to find magnitude 5.5 ω1 Tauri, slightly brighter than the planet. You should have noticed a blue-green magnitude 5.8 object along the way. That is Uranus.
Note that Uranus is moving eastward at about three arcminutes per day, so its orientation with respect to the 37-39-omega1 line will change.
Uranus will be easiest to find on July 4, when it is 0.1° northwest of Mars, low in the east-northeast before twilight.
Neptune
Neptune rises before midnight beginning on the 7th, becoming an evening planet. Look about 10° west-southwest of Saturn to find our outermost planet, shining at magnitude 7.8.
Because Neptune is fairly dim, and it is located within an area of the sky relatively sparsely populated, it can be a bit difficult to find, but a quick way to get within Neptune’s neighborhood is to follow the eastern segment of the Great Square from Alpheratz (α Andromedae) through Algenib (γ Pegasi), and continue southward by the same distance. Roughly aiming a small telescope using low magnification at this spot has a good chance of capturing Neptune within the field of view, but given that it is not located near anything means we’ll need some more reference stars to guide us to the eighth planet. A little more than one degree north of Neptune’s position there is a small, uneven quadrilateral of 6th and 7th magnitude stars arranged in two nearly parallel pairs oriented southwest-northwest and separated by just under a degree. The eastern pair contains the brightest star, and is the wider of the pairs, at ⅓°. From the brightest star, magnitude 6.2 HD 1367, move 1.0° south to find a triangle of 8th magnitude stars that is 1.2° along its longest edge. When Uranus reaches its stationary point on the 9th, it will be 7 arcminutes west of the westernmost star of this triangle, magnitude 7.8 HD 1329.
The waning gibbous Moon is 6.0° north-northeast of Neptune on the 7th.
Minor Planets
Pluto is at opposition in Capricornus on the 27th. At a distance of 34.552 au, Pluto shines at magnitude 14.5, too dim to be seen with a telescope smaller than 10 inches, but it should be within reach of most smart scopes on nights of good transparency. The 95.4% waning gibbous Moon is 0.2° north of Pluto on the 2nd, and the full Buck Moon is 2.8° to the west of Pluto on the 28th-29th, but you’ll likely want to try finding Pluto when the bright Moon is not washing out its dim, distant light. In mid-July, Pluto is 4.0° northeast of magnitude 4.1 φ Capricorni, and 1.0° south of magnitude 6.1 HD 195006, and moves west-southwestward at 1 arcminute per day.
Dwarf planet Ceres is moving eastward through Taurus, and can be seen a few degrees east of Mars. The Red Planet catches up with Ceres as the month comes to a close, with the pair being just 3° apart at the end of July.
On the 28th and 29th, Ceres, at magnitude 9.0, passes just ¼° south of Messier 1, the Crab Nebula supernova remnant. The Crab Nebula, at a distance of 6,500 light years, is 121 times farther away than Ceres.
5574 Seagrave is in conjunction on the 9th, and 6277 Siok is in conjunction on the 13th. The pair of asteroids will come back into favorable viewing position when they reach their respective western quadratures in December.
15022 Francinejackson is at eastern quadrature in Virgo on the 7th, and 6277 Siok is in conjunction on the 13th. This pair of asteroids will come back into favorable viewing position when they reach western quadrature in April 2027 and December 2026, respectively.
Distant dwarf planets Makemake and Haumea both reach eastern quadrature in July: Makemake on the 2nd in Coma Berenices, and Haumea on the 25th, in Boötes. While this area of sky remains relatively high in the southwest during July evenings, eastern quadrature generally implies the end of the optimal viewing window for dim and distant objects.
Just a few degrees east of Saturn, two of our solar system’s largest asteroids, Pallas and Vesta, move along the border of Pisces and Cetus. Pallas is at western quadrature in Pisces on the 12th, and Vesta reaches its western quadrature on the 14th.
The pair reaches their closest proximity to each other on the 15th, when they are separated by just 3.0° in our sky, but by over 0.6 au in spatial distance. With Pallas at magnitude 9.8, and Vesta at magnitude 7.7, both objects should be visible with binoculars during the early morning hours under dark sky conditions, but may require a telescope when the Moon is nearby.
Asteroid 3 Juno reaches opposition on the 26th, in Aquila. From 1.806 au away, the 250 kilometer asteroid shines at magnitude 9.1. It can be found just a few degrees from δ Aquilae, moving about 12 arcminutes per day towards the west-southwest. It is 3.8° due south of δ on the 23rd.
1613 Smiley is at opposition on the 10th, and closest to Earth, at 2.362 au, on the 13th, peaking at magnitude 16.5 in Sagittarius. Smiley, an 18 kilometer asteroid discovered in 1950 and named for Charles Smiley, founder of Skyscrapers and director of Ladd Observatory from 1931 to 1970, is moving westward (retrograde) at about 13 arcminutes per day. Moving towards the teapot asterism, it is 0.7° due south of τ Sagitarii on the 25th, and crosses the handle of the teapot the following night.
Comets
Comet 10P/Tempel 2, a periodic comet with an eccentric orbit that ranges from the orbit of Mars out to 4.710 au, and with a period of 5.36 years, is visible in the early morning sky. Well placed high in the south at 3:00am, the comet is expected to become brighter than magnitude 10 and may be visible with binoculars, but bright moonlight may require a larger telescope to view it early in the month, when it is located in Aquarius, just 1.0° south of Caldwell 56 (NGC 7009), the planetary nebula known as the Saturn nebula, and within the same binocular field as the asterism Messier 73. It is moving southeastward at 0.5° per day.
The comet’s visibility improves by mid-month when the moonlight wanes. It passes 1.0° east of magnitude 4.3 ι Capricorni.
Meteors
While a few celestial fireworks may linger from the June Bootids during the opening days of July, there are two more prevalent meteor showers that peak late in the month, which unfortunately coincides with bright moonlight in 2026.
The Southern Delta Aquariids, meteors left behind by comet 96P/Machholz, can optimally produce up to 25 fainter meteors per hour during peak activity on July 30-31, but with a nearly full Moon present, expect this shower to be a wash-out.
Holding a little more promise, despite its lower hourly rate and its peak conflicting with the full Moon, are the Alpha Capricornids. Up to five slow-moving meteors per hour may be seen during peak activity on the 30th-31st, but this meteor shower is known to produce more fireballs, which have a tendency to penetrate a bright sky.
The Perseids, from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, are generally considered to be an August meteor shower, but they can be present as early as mid-July.
Stars & Beyond
The evening sky turns definitively from spring to summer during July. Leo and Virgo sink lower in the west, and the Summer Triangle is high in the east.
Ursa Major assumes its summer nose-down orientation, with the bowl of the Big Dipper extended towards the west. Arcturus and Vega, the 4th and 5th brightest stars in the sky, are on either side of the meridian, and between them the distinct keystone asterism of central Hercules is directly overhead. A few degrees to the west, or right, of Hercules is Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, host of the Blaze Star T Coronae Borealis. It has now been over 80 years since the recurrent nova’s last outburst from 10th magnitude up to 2nd, so it can be expected to give us a new star, or nova, any day now. Once it flares, it will fade out again in just a few days, so keep watching this part of the sky.
July is also the first month when the band of the summer Milky Way becomes visible as soon as evening twilight fades. Stretching from Scorpius and Sagittarius in the south-southeast to Cassiopeia and Cepheus in the north-northeast. By midnight, it arcs high overhead, welcoming explorers to turn their gaze towards the myriad of star clusters, star clouds, nebulae, and dark rifts that stretch from Scorpius and Sagittarius in the south, all the way through Cepheus and Cassiopeia in the north. Cosmic travelers looking to get the most out of their summer trip through the Milky Way may wish to plan their camping weekend or dark sky visit during the middle of the month, when the bright Moon doesn’t interfere.
For the month of July, we’ll visit a diminutive constellation that offers a deep view into the Milky Way: Scutum. At just over 109 square degrees, Scutum is the fifth-smallest constellation in the sky by area, and the third smallest that is wholly visible from latitude of 42° north.
Perhaps the most conspicuous patch of the Milky Way visible from mid-northern latitudes is the Scutum Star Cloud. This patch of our home galaxy occupies the area of sky roughly from declination -5 to -12, and right ascension 18h 35m to 19h 05m, and isn’t so much of a “cloud” of stars, but rather a more transparent window through foreground clouds of gas and dust obscuring light from the stars in the Scutum–Centaurus Arm of our galaxy.
From a reasonably dark site, a rich field telescope will resolve much of the star cloud into a mottled field of countless stars at the limit of your telescope’s resolution, sprinkled with some moderately bright ones. Spend any more than a few seconds panning around this area and you will find a bright knot of stars worthy of a deeper look.
If you observe under a bright sky and have difficulty seeing the Scutum Star Cloud, you can start at λ Aquilae, the star that marks the tail of the eagle, and, surprisingly, has no official IAU designation, but is referred to by some sources by its traditional Arabic name Al Thalimain Prior.
From λ Aql, you can move 4.6° due west to find β Scuti, which lies within the northern fringes of the star cloud. Just 1° south of β Scuti lies a crooked quadrilateral of 5th and 6th magnitude stars which appears to form a slightly bent wedge with a cluster of stars to the southeast. Messier 11, also catalogued as NGC 6705, Collinder 391, and Melotte 213, is one of the finest open star clusters in the sky. With a combined visual magnitude of 6.3, it is faintly visible to keen-eyed observers under a truly dark sky. Even under moderate light pollution, it is a pleasure to view in any size telescope or binoculars, even showing as a distinct fuzzy patch in instruments as small as a 6×30 finder.
Containing about 3,000 stars in an area about eight light years across, M11 is one of the densest open clusters known, boasting a Trumpler classification of II,2,r, indicating little central concentration and a moderate range of apparent magnitudes among its rich population of stars. The cluster has a mass of about 11,000 Suns, with many of its members hot, blue spectral class B8 stars, some having already evolved off the main sequence and into the giant branch, giving the cluster an age of about 220 million years.
From a staggering distance of 6,200 light years, many of M11’s stars are around 11th-12th magnitude, making the cluster easily resolvable with small telescopes. Larger telescopes resolve even fainter members, and M11 takes high magnification quite well, filling the eyepiece with a star-spangled spectacle few other objects in the sky can provide.
M11 is commonly referred to as the Wild Duck Cluster, apparently resembling a flock of flying ducks (use your imagination). The cluster was discovered by German astronomer Gottfried Kirch in 1681, 83 years before Charles Messier added it to his list of non-cometary objects.
There are many other easily accessible sights to see as you take your own cosmic cruise of discovery through the Milky Way on a warm July evening among the relaxing nocturnal chorus of crickets and katydids.
