Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday July 14th through Sunday July 20th.

The moon is at third quarter late on Thursday night, so we’ll have a waning gibbous moon for the first part of the week and a waning crescent moon for the weekend.

Mercury is sinking back towards the sun and is setting at 9:30 p.m.

Mars is in the west-southwest at sundown and is setting at 11:20 p.m.

Saturn is rising around midnight this week as it works its way back towards our evening skies this fall. Look for Saturn near the moon early Wednesday morning.

Venus is rising at 3:40 a.m. and is still near the Hyades open star cluster.

Jupiter is rising at 5:25 a.m., an hour and 15 minutes before the Sun.

In space anniversaries this week, Monday July 14th marks 60 years since the Mariner 4 spacecraft became the first mission to successfully flyby and return close-up photos of the planet Mars. Mariner 4 launched in late November 1964 and then passed with 6100 miles of Mars in July 1965. Final communications with the spacecraft occurred in December 1967 and the spacecraft remains in orbit around the Sun.

And 50 years ago this week, the US and Soviet Apollo-Soyuz spacecrafts launched and rendezvoused, marking the first international human spaceflight mission. Both spacecraft launched from their respective countries on July 15 and then docked in low earth orbit on the 17th. The two ships were docked for just under two days before separating and continuing their individual missions with the Soviet Soyuz crew landing on July 21 and the US Apollo astronauts splashing down on July 24th.

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.