{"id":2871,"date":"2023-06-20T01:16:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T01:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2871"},"modified":"2023-06-20T01:19:54","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T01:19:54","slug":"astrocal-july-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2871","title":{"rendered":"AstroCal – July 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most visible planet in the western sky, <\/span>Venus<\/b>, will take a dramatic plunge during the month of July.\u00a0 It will begin July 25 degrees above the horizon and will set 2.3 hours after the <\/span>Sun <\/b>on that date.\u00a0 By August 1, Venus will only be 3 degrees above the horizon and will set a mere 19 minutes after sunset<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/b>During these 31 days, Venus\u2019 distance from the Sun decreases from 45.6 million miles to 28.6 million miles while the disk as seen from Earth will increase from 34 arcseconds to 54 arcseconds.\u00a0 The fraction of the planet illuminated will be shrinking during the month from 31 percent on July 1 to 5 percent by August 1.\u00a0 According to the Abrams Planetarium web page, \u201cThe crescent is large enough to be resolved with common\u00a0 binoculars, for example, of about 8 power.\u00a0 To succeed, find Venus very soon after sunset.\u00a0 If you search for Venus in daytime, <\/span>take care to avoid pointing your optics at the sun!<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As long as you have your binoculars handy, they can also be used to see a couple of close pairs and trios during the month.\u00a0 A July 4 patriotic display of red <\/span>Mars<\/b> 3.5 degrees to the upper left of white Venus and 3.5 degrees lower than blue<\/span> Regulus<\/b> in the heart of <\/span>Leo, the Lion<\/b>.\u00a0 Venus and Regulus will be within 5 and 3.5 degrees of each other from July 9 to July 25 with the closest approach taking place July 15-16.\u00a0 Mars will appear within this same 5 degree circle on July 9-10.\u00a0 Venus will reach its brightest magnitude (-4.7) on July 7 and though Mars will only be shining at a mag +1.7, it is relatively easy to find just above and to the left of Venus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The early part of the month will feature a <\/span>Full Moon <\/b>(July 3), a <\/span>Last Quarter Moon <\/b>(July 9) and a <\/span>New Moon <\/b>(July 17).\u00a0 The <\/span>Young Crescent Moon<\/b> should be visible low in the western sky on the evenings of Ju<\/span>l<\/b>y 18-19 about 45 minutes after sunset.\u00a0 <\/span>Mercury <\/b>(mag. -1.0) will be very low on the western horizon and left of the young Moon on the 18th and just below the slim crescent on the 19th.\u00a0 As the <\/span>waxing Moon <\/b>(when the illuminated portion of the Moon is getting larger) will pass just below <\/span>Saturn <\/b>(July 7), <\/span>Neptune <\/b>(July 9), just right of <\/span>Jupiter <\/b>(July 11) and finally, just to the right of <\/span>Uranus <\/b>(July 12).\u00a0 Jupiter and Saturn will be at mag -2.2 and +0.7 so they should be easy to find.\u00a0 The rest +5.5 or dimmer so binoculars may be needed to see them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0July marks a couple of other notable events.\u00a0 July 6 sees the <\/span>Earth <\/b>at its farthest point from the Sun called <\/span>aphelion<\/b>.\u00a0 This puts us 94.51 million miles or 1.017 a.u. (astronomical units) from our closest celestial neighbor.\u00a0 The best viewing of our more distant neighbors located in the <\/span>Milky Way Galaxy<\/b> will be during the span covering July 7-20.\u00a0 Viewing our galactic neighbors will get more difficult near the end of the month with the next Full Moon occuring on August 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our historical astronomical event has before and after dates and doesn\u2019t even take place in July (it never hurts to plan ahead).\u00a0 On September 8, 2016, NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft was launched on a mission to visit asteroid Bennu.\u00a0 This mission was more than just another \u2018flyby photo op\u2019 – OSIRIS-REx was going to spend time orbiting the asteroid.\u00a0 After identifying four potential sampling sites (labeled Kingfisher, Nightingale, Osprey, and Sandpiper), the craft performed a \u2018bump and run\u2019 encounter with Bennu.\u00a0 The samples collected will be returning to the Earth in the Utah desert on September 24, 2023.\u00a0 I remember giving my eighth grade students a current events assignment about this mission when it was launched seven years ago – their class is already two years past graduation.\u00a0 A more detailed account of the Bennu mission will be forthcoming in a future <\/span>From the Vaults<\/span><\/i> article published in this space.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 As long as we mention Leo, the Lion, here is a pretty good cover of Deep Purple’s MAYBE I’M A LEO . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most visible planet in the western sky, Venus, will take a dramatic plunge during the month of July.\u00a0 It will begin July 25 degrees above the horizon and will set 2.3 hours after the Sun on that date.\u00a0 By August 1, Venus will only be 3 degrees above the horizon and will set a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2874,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions\/2874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}