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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

 

Sky This Week - Thursday July 16 to Thursday July 23

The New Moon is Tuesday, July 21. Four bright planets are visible in the morning skies. Venus is in the head of Taurus the Bull below the bright star Aldebaran. The crescent Moon is close to Venus on the 17th. The thin crescent Moon and Mercury are close low in the twilight on the 19th.  Mars is rising before midnight. Jupiter and Saturn are easily visible in the evening sky. Saturn is at opposition, when is is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on the 21st.

The New Moon is Tuesday, July 21.  The Moon is at perigee, when it is closest to the Earth on  the 25th.


Evening sky at 18:55 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on Tuesday, July 21 facing east as seen from Adelaide. Jupiter and Saturn are high above the Eastern horizon. Saturn is at opposition, when is is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth.

The insets shows the telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn at the same scale at this time. Io is crossing the face of Jupiter.

Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset), click to embiggen.


Morning sky on Friday, July 17 showing the eastern sky as seen from Adelaide at 5:51 am ACST (90 minutes before sunrise). Crescent Venus is in the Hyades cluster (the head of Taurus the Bull) below the red star Aldebaran, the eye of the Bull, and close to the crescent Moon. The inset shows the telescopic view of Venus at this time. 




Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes before sunrise), click to embiggen.

Morning sky on Sunday, July 19 showing the whole sky as seen from Adelaide at 6:21 am ACST (60 minutes before sunrise).


Four bright planets are visible stretching west to east. Jupiter, Saturn Mars and Venus (and Mercury, just). Venus is below the bright star Aldebaran. The Moon is close to Mercury low on the horizon. 

Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (60 minutes before sunrise)  click to embiggen.


Four bright planets grace the morning sky (Five, although Mercury is hard to see).

Mercury is difficult to see low in the morning twilight and is close to the Moon on the 19th..

Venus  moves through the Hyades (the head of Taurus the Bull) and is below the bright red Aldebaran (the eye of the Bull). Venus is close to the crescent Moon on the 17th.

 Mars is visible high in the morning sky to the north, east of Jupiter and Saturn. It enters the evening sky shortly before midnight but is still low to the horizon.
 
Jupiter is lowering in the morning sky and now can be readily seen in the early evening sky. Jupiter and Saturn stay around a hand-span apart during the week. Jupiter was at opposition, when it was biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on the 14th, but is still an excellent sight.

Saturn is also lowering in the morning sky near Jupiter drawing away from Mars. It too is now visible in the early evening skies. Saturn is at opposition, when is is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on the 21st.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.




Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to current time.

Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.

Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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