July is the best month of the year to look up in New York City, and the sky delivers a full lineup: two bright planets, the Milky Way, the last Manhattanhenge of the year and a run of overlapping meteor showers, all visible without leaving the five boroughs.
That rundown of the month’s celestial events was first reported by Gothamist, which talked to local astronomers about what to watch and where to stand.
“July is an exciting mix of very prominent naked eye planet alignments, deep sky hunting and good targets for telescope users,” said Bart Fried, a member of the American Astronomical Society.
Start with the easy wins. Anyone out early for July 4 fireworks can catch Venus and Jupiter low on the western horizon after sunset. Venus, the hottest planet in the solar system, is also the brightest thing in the night sky after the moon. “You can’t miss it,” Fried said. “Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the moon.” Use it as an anchor and Jupiter sits lower and to its right. Catch the gas giant early in the month, because by mid-July it sets around the same time as the sun and drops out of the evening sky.
Overhead, look for Arcturus, a red giant star about 40 light-years away. To the east is the Summer Triangle, the most prominent star pattern over the city this time of year, formed by Vega in Lyra, Deneb in Cygnus and Altair in Aquila.
“On the Fourth of July, we’re out, it’s dark, we’re waiting for the fireworks, take a moment to look at what’s up in the sky,” said Ruth Angus, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. “But once the fireworks have gone off, the sky might be obscured by smoke.”
The Milky Way is the summer sky’s showpiece, and you don’t have to drive upstate to catch it. Fried said the galactic core is visible from the southern end of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, looking south over the ocean past the Rockaways, using Deneb as a guide. The darkest skies come around July 14, the new moon. “At a good dark site, you see the core and arc of the Milky Way and you see the dust lanes instantly,” Fried said.
The marquee event is Manhattanhenge on July 11, the last one of the year, when the full disc of the sun drops into alignment with the Manhattan street grid at 8:20 p.m. The best vantage points are crosstown streets with a clear shot to the Hudson River, like 14th and 42nd, plus Tudor City and Hunter’s Point South Park in Long Island City. The American Museum of Natural History throws its annual block party that evening with a salsa band, closing part of West 79th Street so crowds can watch the sun set unobstructed. Show up the next night around the same time and the sun’s midpoint lines up with the grid, so half the disc frames up between the high-rises.
Late July brings three overlapping meteor showers, with the Alpha Capricornids and Southern Delta Aquariids both peaking at the end of the month. The catch: a full moon on July 29 will wash out most of the shooting stars, so astronomers suggest looking during the third week of the month instead, about a week ahead of the peak. The Perseids, one of the best annual showers, start around then but don’t peak until August. “If you’re looking to get out and do some great shooting star gazing, then it’s probably better to wait for mid-August and then you get the Perseids and the new moon at the same time,” Angus said.
Free public telescope sessions run across the city nearly every night in July. On July 5, the Urban Park Rangers host a midday solar sungazing session at Silver Lake Park on Staten Island, where participants learn safe solar astronomy and make cyanotypes, photographic prints made with sunlight instead of a camera. On July 7, the Amateur Astronomers Association teams up with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope crew for an event on the High Line.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
