Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday July 27th through Sunday August 2nd.

The full moon for the month of July is on Wednesday the 29th, so we’ll start the week with a waxing gibbous moon and finish with a waning gibbous moon. This full moon is known as the Hay Moon, the Thunder Moon, and the Apollo Moon.

Jupiter is in solar conjunction on Wednesday when it will pass behind the sun from the Earth’s perspective and move from our evening skies into our morning skies. Jupiter’s next opposition, when it will be best for early evening viewing, will be in February of 2027.

Venus is now the only planet in the west at sunset and is shining brightly at magnitude -4.2. Venus is setting at 10:40 p.m. at midweek.

Saturn is rising at 11:45 p.m. as it moves back towards our early evening skies and its next opposition, which occurs in early October.

Mars is rising at 3:20 a.m. and Mercury is rising at 5:25 a.m. when it is at its greatest western elongation on Sunday.

In space anniversaries this week, Tuesday July 28th marks 175 years since the first photograph was taken of a total solar eclipse, imaged by Julius Berkowski in what is now Kaliningrad, Russia. While there were a few earlier attempts, this was the first photograph that successfully got the correct exposure to show the corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun visible around the moon during a total solar eclipse. This particular eclipse stretched from far northern Canada, across Greenland, and over Northern and Eastern Europe, and ended at the boundary between Europe and Western Asia.

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.