Transient Events That Can Give Us a Good Enough Reason to Get Outside and Do a Little Observing
July 2026
All month: the sunset sky becomes a less interesting place for planet watchers this month, as Jupiter and Mercury both head rapidly towards solar conjunction, leaving Venus in sole possession of the evening twilight. As July begins, Mercury is only 2° above the horizon a half hour after sunset, and Jupiter is only 5° higher, making both of them challenging but not necessarily rewarding targets. Venus soldiers on, setting at 10:49 pm on July 1 and 10:01 pm on July 31. Over the course of the month, it brightens from mag -4.1 to -4.3 and swells from 16 to nearly 21 arcseconds wide as its phase shrinks from 69% to 56% illuminated. In the overnight sky, Neptune is the first to crest the horizon, rising just before 12:30 am as the month begins and two hours earlier when it ends. Its blue disk spans 2.3 arcseconds and glows at mag 7.8. Saturn follows a half hour later, its 18 arcsecond disk growing imperceptibly and brightening from mag +0.8 to +0.6 during July. Its rings continue to open slowly, now tilted 9° to our line of sight. Mars rises at 2:50 am as July opens and shortly after 2 am when it ends. It shines at mag +1.3, but its disk remains just under 5 arcseconds wide, still too small to reveal surface details – but that will change as it gets closer to opposition, which will happen in February 2027. Uranus rises six minutes after Mars on July 1, but by July 31 it appears an hour earlier than the red planet, rising a few minutes after 1 am. Its blue-green disk spans 3.5 arcseconds and gleams at mag 5.8, just bright enough to make it a nakedeye challenge from a good dark site. Mercury reaches inferior conjunction on July 12 and emerges in the dawn sky near month’s end, just 5° above the horizon a half hour before sunrise on July 25, glowing feebly at mag 1.7, a thin crescent 16% lit and 10 arcseconds across. Jupiter reaches conjunction on July
29, and will return as a morning target in late August. Among the asteroids, it’s a big month for oppositions, as 18 Melpomene (July 8), 8 Flora (July 9), and 3 Juno (July 26) all reach their brightest levels of the year. This month’s charts will show you where to find them.
July 1: night owls and early risers start July with a nice view as mag +1.3 Mars climbs up the eastern sky with the Pleiades (M45) just 4½° above and slightly to the left. You’ll need binoculars to spot the cluster’s gorgeous stars. Once you have them in view, look slightly below left of Mars – 5° directly below the Pleiades – and see if you can spot pale blue Uranus. The show begins when Mars rises at 2:50 am CDT, but is best around 4:15 am (an hour before sunrise) when the red planet has reached 14° elevation.
July 4: Mars and Uranus have a remarkably close (and colorful) conjunction this morning, only 9 arcminutes apart at 4:20 am CDT (an hour before sunrise). You’ll need binoculars or a telescope to tease them apart. Blue-green Uranus is directly above reddish Mars, midway between the Pleiades (M45) directly above them, and the Hyades directly below. A mag 8.3 orange star sits between them.
July 5-13: mag +1.4 Regulus (Alpha [] Leonis) approaches mag -4.1 Venus like a dog checking out a new neighbor, starting out at a wary 5° to the bright planet’s upper left and ending up 5° to its lower right. Closest approach is on July 9, when the star is 1° almost directly below the planet.
July 11: the predawn east is a complicated scene this morning, anchored by a lovely 13% illuminated crescent Moon at the top of a slanting line of luminaries, with reddish mag +1.3 Mars positioned 5° below right of the crescent and 5½° above left of yellowish mag 0.9 Aldebaran, and the Hyades filling the space between them. Meanwhile, Uranus sits 5° to the right of the crescent, its blue-green disk glowing at mag 5.8, and the Pleiades (M45) are 4° directly above Uranus. Sort it out any time between 4:00 and 4:30 am CDT, before morning twilight makes it all disappear.
July 14+15: new Moon arrives at 4:44 am CDT on the 14th. Steven James O’Meara once spotted a crescent Moon when it was only 15 hours 32 minutes old, setting an often-cited naked-eye record; the record with optical assistance is 11 hours 40 minutes. At 8:46 pm July 14 (20 minutes after sunset), the Moon will be 16 hours old, a vanishingly-thin crescent less than 1% illuminated, 2½° above the horizon, and 3° left of the spot where the Sun went down. Your best bet for finding it might be to use mag -1.8 Jupiter as a guide, although it too will be an extremely difficult catch in the bright twilight: the crescent will be at exactly the same elevation as the big planet, and 2° to its right. You’ll have to work fast to catch either of them before they set together at 8:59 pm. If you miss it, try again on the 15th: at 8:55 pm (a half hour after sunset), the Moon will be 40 hours old, a thin crescent 4% illuminated, almost 7° above the horizon, and 15° left of the sunset spot.
July 16: at 8:54 pm CDT (a half hour after sunset), the 2.8 day old crescent Moon, 10% illuminated, sits 12° above the west horizon, with mag +1.4 Regulus (Alpha [] Leonis) just over 1° to its upper right, while bright Venus (mag -4.2) watches over them from its perch 8° to the upper left.
July 17: it’s another pretty tableau after sunset tonight as a delicate, 17% lit crescent Moon slips towards the horizon escorted by brilliant mag -4.2 Venus 6° to its right. The pair are 20° up at 8:24 pm CDT, when the Sun slips below Earth’s edge – catch the view before they set, shortly before 10:30 pm.
July 24: the 82% lit gibbous Moon hugs the south horizon tonight, never rising above 20° elevation, with ruddy red Antares (Alpha [] Scorpii) providing color contrast just 2½° to the upper right.
July 27: Pluto reaches opposition tonight, but at mag 14.5 it’s not likely that you’ll be able to pick it out from the surrounding stars. If you want to give it a try, use the finding chart on pages 50-51 of the July issue of Sky & Telescope. Pluto was nearly a magnitude brighter when it was nearest to the Sun (and Earth) in the late 1980s. It has become progressively fainter since then, and will continue to fade until it reaches the far point of its orbit in 2114.
July 28: the South Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks in the wee hours tonight – but that’s also when the Moon reaches full, and meteors never win when it’s them vs. moonlight. Be patient and wait for next month’s Perseids: they’re a more prolific shower, and they coincide with new Moon this year, so they should give us a better than usual summer show (if the clouds cooperate).
Rick Gering / July 2026