Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 14, 2025

Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report.

SUNDAY JULY 13

■ Scorpius is sometimes called “the Orion of Summer” for its brightness, its 1st-magnitude red supergiant star, and its many blue-white giants. But Scorpius passes a lot lower across the southern sky than Orion does. So for those of us at mid-northern latitudes it has only one really good evening month: July.

The rich area around the tail of Scorpius is now at its highest in the south right after night is fully dark, as shown below. Find it lower right of the Teapot’s spout by a fist at arm’s length or less. Or about a fist and a half lower left of Antares.

Shaula and Lesath in the tail of Scorpius are the Cat’s Eyes. Halfway between them and the spout of the Teapot is the big bright open cluster M7, one of the finest in the sky — if you can see this low to the south! Nearly 4° upper right of M7 is smaller, more modest M6. And the Cat’s Eyes point west (right) to Mu Scorpii, a much closer pair known as the Little Cat’s Eyes. Stellarium

Spot the two stars especially close together in the tail. These are Shaula and Lesath, Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii, also known as the Cat’s Eyes. They’re unequal and canted at an angle; the cat has a bleary eye and is tilting his head to our right. They’re magnitudes 1.6 and 2.6. Both are blue-white supergiants, 700 and 500 light years away, respectively. The fainter one, Lesath, is the nearer one.

Between the Cat’s Eyes and the Teapot’s spout are the open star clusters M7 and especially M6: showy speckle-splashes in binoculars. M7 is the bigger and brighter one. M6 is more subdued.

Also: A line through the Cat’s Eyes points west (right) by nearly a fist toward Mu Scorpii, a much tighter pair known as the Little Cat’s Eyes. They’re oriented almost exactly the same way as Lambda and Upsilon but they’re only 0.1° apart, so they appear as a single dot on the chart above; bring binoculars. They too are not a true binary. They’re 800 and 500 light-years away, and again the fainter one is nearer.

MONDAY, JULY 14

■ Fourth star of the Summer Triangle. The next-brightest star near the Summer Triangle, if you’d like to turn it into a quadrilateral, is Rasalhague (Alpha Ophiuchi), the head of Ophiuchus. Look high toward the southeast soon after dark. You’ll find Rasalhague about equally far to the upper right of Altair and lower right of Vega. Altair is currently the Summer Triangle’s lowest star. Vega, nearly overhead, is its brightest.

Face southeast right after dark in July, look high, and there’s the big, Milky-Way-crossed Summer Triangle. Add Rasalhague to its right and you’ve got a cut diamond standing on its point. Bob King photo

TUESDAY, JULY 15

■ Standing atop Scorpius in the south after darkness is complete, and butting heads with Hercules much higher, is enormous Ophiuchus the Serpent-Holder. Just east of his east shoulder (Beta Ophiuchi) is a dim V-shaped asterism like a smaller, fainter Hyades.

The top two stars of the V are the faintest (magnitudes 4.8 and 5.5). The middle star of its left (east) side is the famous K-dwarf binary 70 Ophiuchi, visual magnitudes 4.2 and 6.2, distance just 17 light-years. The two stars of the pair are currently 6.7 arcseconds apart in their 88-year orbit: close but nicely separated at medium-high power in any telescope.

■ The waning gibbous Moon rises around 11 or midnight with Saturn glowing only 2° or 3° below it. By the beginning of dawn Wednesday morning, they shine together high in the southeast.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16

■ We’re only a quarter of the way through astronomical summer, but already Cassiopeia is getting well up after dark. Look for its tilted W pattern in the north-northeast.

THURSDAY, JULY 17

■ Last-quarter Moon (exact at 8:38 p.m. EDT). The Moon rises around midnight in the east-northeast, below Andromeda and the Great Square of Pegasus. By that time Saturn is in view low in the east-southeast.

■ Titan casts its shadow on Saturn tonight. Every 15 years Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, repeatedly crosses Saturn’s face from Earth’s viewpoint — and, more visibly, cast its tiny black shadow onto Saturn’ face. A new series of these events is under way. They will continue every 16 days until October.

Tonight Titan’s shadow crosses Saturn from 7:00 to 12:05 UT July 18th (UT date). That’s from 3:00 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. July 18th Eastern Daylight Time; 12:00 midnight to 5:05 a.m. PDT. Wherever you are, Saturn rises by midnight daylight-saving time and is high in good seeing before dawn. So all of North America now gets a chance.

FRIDAY, JULY 18

■ The landmark Sagittarius Teapot sits rather low in the south-southeast after nightfall is complete. It’s made of 2nd- and 3rd-magnitude stars and is about as big as your fist at arm’s length. Its handle is on the left and its triangular spout is on the right.

As the night advances, and as summer advances, the Teapot will move westward and start tilting to pour from its spout.

SATURDAY, JULY 19

■ Pleiades occultation Sunday morning. In the early-morning hours of tonight, the bright limb of the waning crescent Moon will occult a few of the Pleiades stars for various parts of North America. They’ll later reappear from behind the Moon’s dark limb, where the events will be much easier to observe. For detailed information, including maps and timetables for four of the brighter Pleiads, click here and see the links for the July 20th events.

SUNDAY, JULY 20

■ During dawn Monday morning, look east for the thin (14% illuminated) waning crescent Moon hanging 7° or 8° above Venus. A little farther than that to their right is orange Aldebaran, much fainter. Way down to their lower left, can you pick up Jupiter?

This Week’s Planet Roundup

Venus, brilliant at magnitude –4.1, rises above the east-northeast horizon a half hour or more before the first glimmer of dawn. Venus climbs higher until the dawn sky finally grows too bright. In a telescope Venus’s shrinking globe (now only about 16 arcseconds pole to pole) has become gibbous, 65% sunlit.

  July 13-20: Venus brilliant at -4.1 magnitude, The Sky