Stargazers across Saskatchewan will have plenty to watch for this month, from close encounters between the moon and planets to meteor showers and one of the best opportunities of the year to view the Milky Way.<\/p>\n
Abigail Sadowski, resident astronomer with the Regina Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, said the month begins with several planets sharing the pre-dawn sky.<\/p>\n
“On July 11, in the early morning sky at around 3 a.m. before dawn, the moon passes through the same general region as Uranus, Mars and the Pleiades,” Sadowski said.<\/p>\n
While Uranus and Neptune require binoculars or a telescope to see, Saturn is much easier to spot.<\/p>\n
“Saturn is the easiest and more rewarding target. It’s visible as a bright steady point of light in the southeastern sky before sunrise.”<\/p>\n
Sadowski also shared a simple tip for identifying planets.<\/p>\n
“Remember, stars twinkle, planets do not.”<\/p>\n
Related Stories:\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002<\/p>\n
Best month for Milky Way viewing<\/p>\n
One of the month’s highlights arrives with the new moon on July 14, creating the darkest skies of July.<\/p>\n
“This will be the best dark sky window of the month,” Sadowski said. “If you’re interested in getting out and observing, doing it when there’s a new moon gives you darker skies and a better chance to see fainter objects.”<\/p>\n
She added that skywatchers in dark locations will also have an excellent chance to see the Milky Way stretching across the southern sky.<\/p>\n
To get the best views, Sadowski recommends leaving the city behind.<\/p>\n
“You can drive 20 minutes-ish out of your city or town, and that’ll help get rid of some of the light pollution,” she said. “I also highly recommend going to dark sky preserves such as Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.”<\/p>\n
Venus, Saturn and a pair of meteor showers<\/p>\n
Skywatchers will also be able to spot a crescent moon near Venus on July 16 and 17 shortly after sunset. During the same period, observers may also notice Earthshine \u2014 sometimes called the “Da Vinci glow” \u2014 where sunlight reflected from Earth faintly illuminates the dark side of the moon.<\/p>\n
Later in the month, Saturn becomes easier to observe as it rises earlier in the evening.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, July closes with two meteor showers peaking on the night of July 30 into July 31.<\/p>\n
The Southern Delta Aquariids could produce between 15 and 20 meteors per hour under ideal conditions, while the Alpha Capricornids are expected to generate fewer meteors but brighter ones.<\/p>\n
“It has a pretty low zenith hourly rate of five meteors per hour, but when you do see them, they’re often fireballs and absolutely spectacular to see,” Sodowski said. “So if you want to go wish on a shooting star, go check out July 30.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stargazers across Saskatchewan will have plenty to watch for this month, from close encounters between the moon and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-788275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}