In the month of July, the planets have a lot in store for us, and in this month’s Gateway to the Stars show we’ll bring it all to life under our high-resolution digital dome theater!
If you’ve been watching the sky for the last several weeks, you’ve probably seen quite a lot of Venus and Jupiter as they follow the Sun down in the early evening, culminating in the beautiful conjunction that occurred June 30th. After their close approach, Venus and Jupiter continue to grace the evening sky, with Venus getting even slightly brighter as its orbit brings it nearer to the Earth, reaching its greatest brightness on July 10th. But it doesn’t end there.
After that, it will slowly move lower and lower toward the Sun, but not without giving us one more treat on its way out: on the evening of July 18th, Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, and the bright star Regulus will all be grouped within a span of about four degrees, which will surely be a great sight just after sunset! From there, however, Venus will get lower and lower as it moves into the Sun’s glare, and by the end of July it will no longer be visible in the evening. In this month’s show, we’ll use our digital sky to give you a great preview of how these motions will look over the coming weeks.
We’ll also take a closer look at the ever-popular Saturn, which will be almost due South in the evening near the pincers of the famous constellation Scorpius. Unfortunately for Northern Hemisphere observers, Saturn won’t get very high in the sky because the Earth’s north pole is leaning away from this part of its orbit, but over the next several years our view will gradually get better. The good news is that Saturn is very nearly at its solstice, so the tilt of its rings leaves them beautifully displayed for us here on Earth. Saturn is always a rewarding target for amateur astronomers; when seen through even a modest telescope, its brightness, subtle color, and iconic shape will delight viewers of all ages and experience levels.
Saturn-27-03-04 by Rochus Hess, taken with a 10-inch Newtonian telescope.
In the this month’s show, we’ll also take a look into the latest findings of the New Horizons probe, which has been en route to Pluto for almost a decade. New Horizons is scheduled to make a close fly-by of the distant, icy dwarf-planet on July 14th, making it the first probe ever to study the Pluto system up close. Because of Pluto’s diminutive size and great distance, its features can’t be seen from Earth-based observatories. Even the Hubble Space Telescope can only produce a tantalizingly vague impression of the surface. With the probe on final-approach, our remote views of Pluto already rival what can be seen by Hubble, and for the next few weeks ever better images will be arriving in droves! In this edition of Gateway to the Stars, we’ll share the best and latest findings from the probe’s approach. Then, after the flyby, we’ll bring you the first results in our Night Vision show on July 16th, just after our Pluto Palooza, and July 18th, which will be all about New Horizons’ Pluto encounter.
Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft during its planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon.
There’s a lot to take in this month without even leaving the solar system! See you there!
Gateway to the Stars is hosted by Nick Jarvis on Saturday July 11th at 6:45pm in the Hansen Dome Theater. Tickets are $2.00, free for planetarium members. Buy tickets here or at the Clark Planetarium ticket desk.
