{"id":554088,"date":"2026-07-17T08:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/554088\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:47:08","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-july-17-the-moon-skims-south-of-venus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/554088\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Friday, July 17: The Moon skims south of Venus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe crescent Moon slides south of Venus this afternoon and stands side by side with the bright planet in the post-sunset sky.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1221\" height=\"866\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07172026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Planetarium simulation of the western sky on July 17, 2026 at 9:40 PM. A thin crescent Moon and Venus appear side by side low on the horizon, with the Melotte 111 star cluster (the Coma Star Cluster) labeled near the top of the frame.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCatch the Moon and Venus sinking toward the western horizon after sunset on July 17, with the Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111) coming into view above them as the sky darkens. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-july-10-to-17-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">July 16: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-july-16-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Moon passes the Lion\u2019s heart<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The Moon passes 2\u00b0 south of Venus at 1 P.M. EDT. By this evening, they are roughly 6\u00b0 apart, with the Moon to Venus\u2019 lower left in the sky tonight, instead of the lower right (as it appeared yesterday). The crescent Moon and Venus sink toward the horizon together at roughly the same altitude, side by side in the growing twilight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Above them is the hind end of Leo the Lion, and above that is the constellation Coma Berenices, or Berenice\u2019s Hair. This constellation contains an easy-to-spot naked-eye star cluster, called (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Coma Star Cluster. Covering some 4\u00b0 of the sky, the cluster\u2019s stars glow collectively at magnitude 1.8, and roughly a dozen are visible to the naked eye. If you opt to observe it with binoculars or a telescope, you\u2019ll pull out at least two dozen more suns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 5:46 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:26 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 9:32 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 10:35 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase:\u00a0Waxing crescent (18%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The crescent Moon slides south of Venus this afternoon and stands side by side&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-554088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}