The evenings of this month are the perfect time to look up.
The highlight of the night sky is the Summer Triangle, which consists of three bright stars from three different constellations: Altair from Aquila the Eagle, Deneb from Cygnus the Cygnus, and Vega from Lyra. Stargazers will also be able to see planets, star clusters and two meteor showers – all with the naked eye. Most can be seen within the five boroughs, in a park, graveyard or other dark places.
Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, called the summer triangle “the first thing in the sky in July.”
Another summer constellation, Scorpio, is not hard to find. It has the shape of a scorpion and at the very heart of the constellation is an orange-red supergiant called Antares.
Spica, a very bright bright blue star in the sky, is in the constellation Virgo. The star will perform his magic trick on July 13 at around 11:25 p.m. That evening, astronomy enthusiasts can follow the edge of the Moon ever closer to Spice until the star disappears behind its lunar neighbor.
“Even in New York, you can see Spica,” Faherty said. “There is some joy in watching the star rise as the moon passes.”
The Pleiades star cluster, meaning seven sisters, contains over a thousand stars loosely bound by gravity. Cluster is also called Subaru (hence the car company’s logo).
Three planets that are often mistaken for stars are visible to the naked eye – Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. It is not difficult to find them in dissonance, because they are bright, but do not sparkle.
At the beginning of the month, Saturn will rise just before midnight, but by the end it will be visible as early as 10 p.m. For night owls, Mars and Jupiter join Saturn in the sky after 1 a.m.
“You can have Mars, Jupiter and Saturn together,” Faherty said. “They are bright, beautiful planets.
There are also two meteor showers this month. Southern Delta Aquariids begins July 18th and runs through August 21st. On July 29-30, the shower peaks with 20 meteors per hour at 25 miles per second. Shooting stars appear in the southern part of the sky originating from the constellation of Aquarius.
The South Delta Aquariums are remnants of space debris from Comet 96P/Machholz, discovered in 1986. The 4-mile-wide comet has a short five-year orbit around the Sun.
The second meteor shower of the month is the Perseids, which begin on July 14 and end on September 1. At its peak on August 11-12, up to 100 meteors per hour stream across the sky at 37 miles per second. .
The meteor shower is one of Faherty’s favorites because of its bright and abundant shooting stars. The cosmic light show is the result of cosmic dust from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to orbit the Sun. The comet’s nucleus is 16 miles wide.
The best way to see a meteor shower is on your back under a dark sky. Be patient. It takes about 30 minutes for the eyes to adjust to the darkness, making the meteors more visible.
Another dazzling sight that can be seen with the naked eye this time of year is the Milky Way. It is high in the sky in July, especially towards the end of the month.
The constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius are close and can be used to find the center of the Milky Way. It’s hard to see from the city, but New Yorkers vacationing under darker skies like the Catskills or further north will see clouds in the night sky.
“It’s a tangle that represents all these stars that make up the disk of the Milky Way that we live in,” Faherty said. “The Milky Way is so beautiful – it stretches from one side of the sky to the other, and it kind of looks like a white river.”
While binoculars and binoculars are not required, a closer look can bring many of these celestial features to life, such as the rings of Saturn, as well as the surfaces of the planets and moons. The Association of Amateur Astronomers organizes free public tours throughout the city, several times a week.