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By Deane Morrison

During July the morning sky hosts three bright planets, each following its own path.

As the month begins, Venus is a beacon low in the southeast. Our sister planet stays low, but moves steadily northward as the winter stars stream past it. Try looking just before dawn on the 10th, when bright Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, the bull, will be below Venus.

The Pleiades star cluster will be above Venus, and no moon will interfere.

Also at dawn, Saturn stays fairly high as it drifts from southeast to south. In mid-month, Jupiter climbs over the northeastern horizon; on the 23rd, an old moon sits to the left of the giant planet as dawn starts to break. Watch Jupiter and Venus approach each other in the last week of the month. The pair will make a close pass in August.

In the southwest, the Summer Triangle of bright stars also graces the morning sky. Two of those stars—Vega and Altair—line up with the moon between the 12th and 13th.   

At nightfall, the Teapot of Sagittarius almost scrapes the horizon as it glides from southeast to south during July. Just west of the Teapot, bright Antares marks the heart of Scorpius. The moon visits Antares on the 6th and 7th and rises in the Teapot on the 9th. The next night, July’s full moon rises in evening twilight and follows the Teapot across the night sky.

Also at nightfall, brilliant Arcturus, in kite-shaped Bootes, the herdsman, shines high in the southwest, while the Summer Triangle ornaments the eastern sky. Between the Triangle and Bootes are upside-down Hercules and Ophiuchus, the snake handler. If you have a star chart, these two lesser-known constellations can be fun to find.    

Earth reaches aphelion, its farthest point from the sun, at 2:54 p.m. on July 3. At that moment we’ll be 94.5 million miles from our parent star.

The University of Minnesota offers public viewings of the night sky at its Duluth and Twin Cities campuses. For more information, see:

Duluth, Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium: www.d.umn.edu/planet

Twin Cities, Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics: www.astro.umn.edu/outreach/pubnight

Check out astronomy programs, free telescope events, and planetarium shows at the

University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum: www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/astronomy

Find U of M astronomers and links to the world of astronomy at: http://www.astro.umn.edu.