THE SKY THIS JULY: SUMMER CONSTELLATIONS, MILKY WAY BECOMING VISIBLE

It actually stopped raining one or two days last month and the skies cleared enough so that I actually saw some stars. No, summers are not often very good for astronomy in our region. La Nina weather pattern wavers the jet stream over us allowing the cold fronts to stall out producing many days of cloudy weather. Fortunately, there really is not much going on this month except that the summer constellations and the Milky Way are becoming visible as the night wears on.

There is some excitement going on this month, two partial eclipses of the Sun and one total eclipse of the Moon. Unfortunately, these occur at places on the Earth far from us. Australia, in particular gets a great total eclipse of the Moon on July, 16. Very late in the month brilliant Venus makes a come back just after sunset, but will look much better next month. The only planets positioned well for viewing are Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. Non of these planets are easy naked eye objects and require moderate sized (8 inch or bigger) telescopes.

The Earth reaches its furthest distance from the Sun on the 4th of July. The Sun is nearing its period of maximum sunspot activity this year. With proper filters or by projecting its image on a piece of cardboard, you should be able to see several sunspots. Galileo was the first to see sunspots and followed their travel across the surface of the Sun during the course of a month proving that the Sun actually rotates on its own axis. Last month, the SOHO spacecraft spotted a giant solar flare that was pointed straight towards the Earth. Two days latter, fantastic northern lights (Aurora) were seen as far south as Florida. Of course it was cloudy here. But keep on the outlook as it is not uncommon to see Aurora here when conditions are right.

There is a possibility that we will see a bright comet around July 23.

Comet LINEAR was named after the automated telescope system which detected it while looking for Earth crossing asteroids. It appears to be a new comet that has never been close to the Sun before, so it may put on a good show. Look for it high in the northwest after sunset with a pair of binoculars.

One of my favorite constellations is well placed in the summer skies for easy viewing. Scorpius the scorpion stands on its tail low in the south late in the evening. The bright, red star Antares marks the heart of the scorpion but the best part is that magnificent tail which curves around just like the real thing. The Milky Way starts near the scorpion and curves towards the east. Next month will show it better.

If you really want to see the planets Jupiter and Saturn, you will have to get up before sunrise and look high in the east. By that time of night most of the dew has settled and you may get great views through your telescope.

There is a weak meteor shower called the Delta Aquarid on July 27. This might be your best bet this summer as the favorite Perseid meteor shower in August will be ruined by the nearly Full Moon.

Dr. Michael Cobb is chairman of the physics department at Southeast Missouri State University. He can be reached at 651-2172.