Summer's here, and July has a nice mix going on: a comet building toward its best showing of the year, some good morning planet watching, a couple of meteor showers that unfortunately have to compete with a bright moon, and the summer Milky Way riding high overhead after dark. Here's what I'm keeping an eye on this month.
🌙 Moon Phases
Last Quarter, July 7. The moon rises after midnight and sits high before dawn, half lit. This is actually a great time for telescope viewing, since the line between light and shadow (called the terminator) throws long shadows across the craters and makes the detail really pop. As a bonus, the moon parks itself right next to Saturn on the mornings of the 7th and 8th, so they'll be an easy pair to find together.
New Moon, July 14. No moon in the sky at all this night, which means dark skies from dusk to dawn. If you've been wanting to get out and see the Milky Way or track down some fainter deep sky targets, this is the week to do it.
First Quarter, July 21. Half the moon lit up in the evening sky. The night before, on the 20th, look for it sitting near Spica, the brightest star in Virgo. This is also a nice night for detailed lunar viewing, since the terminator runs right across some fun crater fields.
Full Buck Moon, July 29. July's full moon gets its name from the fact that male deer are growing in new antlers this time of year. It'll be up and bright all night on both the 29th and 30th. Gorgeous to look at, but it does wash out the fainter stuff, so if you want to chase deep sky objects, aim for the new moon week instead.
🪐 Planetary Happenings
Venus is the star of the evening sky all month. Look west after sunset and you honestly can't miss it, it's the blazing "evening star." Early in the month it closes in on Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, passing within about a degree and a half of it around July 8th and 9th. A pretty pairing if you catch it.
Jupiter is fading out of the evening twilight early in the month and slides behind the sun from our point of view (called solar conjunction) on July 29th, so it disappears from view entirely by then. It'll pop back up in the morning sky in a few weeks.
Mars is a morning planet now, rising a couple hours before the sun and drifting between the Pleiades cluster and the bright orange star Aldebaran. The highlight is July 4th, when Mars passes just a tenth of a degree from Uranus. Mars is easy to spot with just your eyes, but you'll want binoculars or a telescope to pick out faint, bluish Uranus sitting right next to it.
Saturn is also a morning object, and it's shaping up to be a good month for it. Its rings, which were nearly edge-on and hard to make out for most of 2025, are opening back up again with a nicer tilt this month. That means a noticeably better telescope view than we've had in a while.
Mercury slides behind the sun on July 12th, then reappears low in the eastern morning sky during the last few days of the month.
☄️ Meteor Showers
Southern Delta Aquariids. Active from mid-July into August, peaking around July 30th and 31st. Under a truly dark sky this is normally a decent shower, but this year the moon will be about 98% full right at the peak, which is going to wash out all but the brightest meteors. Rating: poor this time around, thanks to the moon.
Alpha Capricornids. Also peaks around July 30th and 31st. This one is usually light on numbers, but it's known for the occasional bright fireball, the kind dramatic enough to punch through some moonlight. Rating: poor to fair, worth a glance if you're already outside, but I wouldn't plan a whole night around it this year.
☄️ Comet Watch
Comet 10P/Tempel 2 is climbing toward its best showing of the year. It's a periodic comet, meaning it swings back through the inner solar system on a regular schedule, in this case every 5.4 years. It reaches its closest point to the sun on August 2nd, so all of July is basically the warmup act. Expect it to brighten from around magnitude 9.5 up toward magnitude 8 over the course of the month, moving from Aquarius into Capricornus. It's a morning object, so you'll want to catch it before dawn. It won't be visible to the naked eye, but it's a satisfying target in binoculars from a dark site, or in a small telescope, if you enjoy tracking a comet's progress night to night.
🔭 Deep Sky Objects for July
With the summer Milky Way arching overhead after dark, July is a great month for the rich star fields toward Sagittarius and Scorpius, plus a couple of old favorites up in Hercules and Cygnus. Best viewed during the new moon week around the 14th.
M13, the Hercules Cluster. This is a globular cluster, basically a tight ball packed with hundreds of thousands of ancient stars. Under dark skies it shows up to the naked eye as a faint smudge. In binoculars it's a nice fuzzy glow. In a telescope it really opens up, resolving into a sprawl of individual pinpoint stars.
M8, the Lagoon Nebula. A glowing cloud of gas and dust where new stars are actively being born. Naked eye, it's a fair, hazy patch in Sagittarius if you're somewhere dark. Binoculars show it well. A telescope gives an excellent view.
M20, the Trifid Nebula. Famous for the dark dust lanes that appear to split it into three lobes. Not visible to the naked eye. In binoculars it's faint and small. In a telescope, especially a bigger one, those dust lanes start to reveal themselves nicely.
M22, the Sagittarius Cluster. Another bright globular cluster, and one of the closest ones to us. Naked eye, a faint smudge under dark skies. Good in binoculars. Excellent in a telescope.
M57, the Ring Nebula. This is the glowing shell of gas that a dying, sun-like star puffed off into space. Not visible to the naked eye, and pretty tough in binoculars since it's so small. But in a telescope it's a classic, a little glowing smoke ring hanging in space.
Albireo. A gorgeous double star at the head of Cygnus the Swan, one star gold and one blue. To the naked eye it just looks like a single star. In binoculars, if you have steady hands, you might just start to split it into two. In a telescope it's one of the best color-contrast doubles in the whole sky.
Clear skies, everyone.
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