Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday July 13th through Sunday July 19th.

The new moon for the month of July is early in the morning hours of Tuesday the 14th, and then we’ll have a waxing crescent moon in our early evening skies for the remainder of the week.

Jupiter is now just two weeks away from solar conjunction and is setting at 9:05 p.m. at midweek, only 30 minutes after the sun.

Venus is still shining brightly in the west at sundown and is setting at 11 p.m. this week. Look for Venus to the right of the thin crescent moon on Friday evening.

Saturn is rising at 12:40 a.m. as it makes its way back towards its next opposition which will occur in early October.

Mars is rising at 3:40 a.m. as it slowly moves towards its next close approach with Earth in February 2027.

Mercury is just emerging from solar conjunction and is rising just 15 minutes before the sun at midweek.

In space anniversaries this week, Wednesday July 15th marks 15 years since the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta, becoming the first mission to orbit a Main Belt asteroid. After 14 months at Vesta, Dawn left orbit to move to Ceres, where it became the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial bodies, and the first to orbit a dwarf planet. After the spacecraft’s hydrazine fuel was depleted, the mission was ended, and it remains in a stable orbit around Ceres.

There will be no public viewing this summer on UT campus telescopes so we can do maintenance and repairs. We expect to resume the regular viewing schedule in the Fall 2026 semester.

While you’re waiting for Austin-area telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on social media and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.

Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.