Moon phases
New-7/1_____First Quarter-7/7____Full-7/14____Last Quarter-7/22
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Meteor showers
Lots and lots of meteor showers this month! Unfortunately, none are very high
yield. The best one may be the Southern Delta Aquarids, with an estimated 20/hr peak on the
27th. The most famous one starts on the 17th and slowly ramps up to peak in August-The
Perseids-with a peak of around 140/hr on August 12th. Keep your eyes peeled for meteors,
seemingly from everywhere.
Deep Sky Objects (DSO's)
Messier Objects
With the galaxies of Virgo sinking in the west, it's time for "Globular Central"-Scorpius, Ophiuchus and Hercules bring lots of BIG chunks of stars to bear. M13 in Hercules is the biggest and closest. Other examples, all great in their own right are, M92, M4, M80, M62, M19, M107, M10, M12, M9. This is as good a month as any to mention M6 and M7 in Scorpius. Two huge, rich binocular open clusters, just off the stinger stars in the Scorpions tail, they are lush with young, hot blue stars. M6 is called "the Butterfly Cluster" for a reason. Check it out!
Named DSO's
Look for the dark nebula called "The Pipe" straight north of the stinger stars in Scorpius.
You'll need binoculars, dark skies and a low southern exposure to see it. It's very large and
appears to have smoke rising to the north from the bowl of the pipe on the east. If you see it,
you can call your skies "dark" with pride. :-)
Here's the link to SEDS as promised.
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