July Has 9 Major Astronomical Events Including Meteor Showers and a Planet Parade—and the First Starts Tonight

Travel + Leisure

2 days ago

With warm weather and relaxed schedules, summer stargazing just hits differently, especially with July's lineup of dazzling space sights. We have planet parades, moon-planet meetups, and meteor showers producing interstellar fireworks. Plus July is one of the best months to admire our home galaxy, the Milky Way. It's visible much of the night from a dark-sky destination, be it a national park or stargazing hotel.
If admiring the heavens is on your summer bucket list, you're in luck. Here's everything to watch for in July's night sky.
Mercury is often difficult to spot since it hangs close to the sun, but its visibility improves a few times each year, including this month. On the evenings of July 3-4, Mercury will reach its eastern elongation—its apparent farthest separation from the sun—in the evening for U.S. sky-watchers. Find it above the western horizon soon after sunset, and don't miss orange-tinged Mars just above it.
Admire July's bright lunar orb, known as the full buck moon, on July 10. The moon hits peak illumination at 4:37 p.m. ET, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac. It won't be visible to U.S. stargazers at this time, but you can catch it at its most luminous and dramatic when it rises the evenings of July 9 and 10.
Watch the waning gibbous moon, Saturn, and Neptune meet in the night sky around midnight on July 16. The trio will travel above the eastern horizon and high into the sky throughout the night, with Venus and Jupiter joining soon before sunrise. While the moon and Saturn will be visible to the naked eye, Neptune requires a telescope.
Stargazers will be treated with an eye-popping planet parade roughly an hour before sunrise on July 19 and 20. Jupiter, Venus, the crescent moon, and Saturn will be visible to the naked eye, with Neptune (adjacent to Saturn) and Uranus (near Venus) visible via telescope. Watch the lineup in the east and southeast sky, and look for clear eastern vistas since Jupiter won't travel far above the horizon.
The crescent moon will appear to gobble up the Pleiades star cluster in the pre-dawn hours of July 20. The moon will cross over several of the cluster's naked-eye-visible stars between around 4 a.m. local time and sunrise. Watch the marvel unfold halfway above the eastern horizon.
The moon-planet magic continues on the morning of July 22, when Venus, Jupiter, and the sliver of a crescent moon form a pyramid above the eastern horizon for roughly an hour before sunrise.
Spot the crescent moon and Mars hanging above the western horizon for roughly two hours after sunset on July 28. The duo will be close enough to share a field of view in stargazing binoculars, according to stargazing app Sky Safari.
The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower runs from around July 18 to Aug. 12, according to NASA. Its July 29-30 peak could produce around seven to eight meteors per hour beneath dark skies. This spectacle is best viewed in the southern hemisphere sky-watching spots. That said, northern hemisphere stargazers may catch a few shooting stars above the southern horizon during the shower's peak. Use Saturn, located just above Aquarius, as a navigational guide. And since the Perseids begin this month, too, you could catch a few meteors above the eastern horizon.
The pre-dawn planet parade will get even dreamier as the month rolls on, particularly around July 30 and 31, when Jupiter moves away from the sun. You can see the upward arc of Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune from the east to the southern sky in the early morning hours of July 30 and 31. If you miss it, don't fret: This is merely an appetizer for what's to come with planetary alignments in August.