Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday July 7th through Sunday July 13th.

The full moon for the month of July is on Thursday the 10th, so we’ll have a waxing gibbous moon for the first half of the week and a waning gibbous moon for the second half of the week. This full moon is known as the Hay Moon, the Thunder Moon, and the Apollo Moon.

Mercury is sinking back towards the sun after greatest elongation last week and is setting at 9:55 p.m.

Mars is in the west-southwest at sunset and is setting at 11:35 p.m.

Saturn is rising at 12:30 a.m. and Neptune is still just a few degrees away from the Ringed Planet.

Venus is rising at 3:45 a.m. and is near the Hyades open star cluster this week.

Jupiter is still emerging from solar conjunction and is rising at 5:45 a.m., not quite an hour before the sun.

Last week, on July 3rd, the Earth was at aphelion, our furthest point from the Sun in our elliptical orbit. That day, the Earth was at 152.1 million kilometers from the Sun. Compare that to our closest point, called perihelion, which occurred on January 4th, when we were at 147.1 million kilometers from the Sun.

There will be no public viewing this summer on the UT campus telescopes so we can do maintenance and repairs. We expect to resume the regular viewing schedule in the Fall 2025 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.