To track the best time to watch them from your location, go to of The International Meteor Organization. To observe meteor showers you just need a star chart to note the track of the meteor, a notepad to write down different colours, sounds, trails and trains of smoke if visible and a counting mechanism to keep note meteors you see. Viewing equipment: No equipment required. Beta-Cassiopeids: Maximum activity on July 29, visible till August 19. South Delta-Aquariids: Maximum activity on July 28, visible till August 19. Alpha-Capricornids: Maximum activity on July 30, visible till August 18. Perseids: Maximum activity on August 12, visible till August 24. North Delta-Aquariids: Maximum activity on July 26, visible till August 25. Attracted by Earth’s gravity, they enter its atmosphere, and burn up, causing a sparkling display of bright streaks across the night sky. Popularly called shooting stars, meteors are small grains of dust orbiting in space. A telescope with solar filters will help when observing transits across the Sun. This space station looks like a fast-moving plane, but travels thousands of kilometers per hour faster than airplanes and at least a dozen times higher.
The International Space Station (ISS) is one such interesting object to sight this month as it passes in front of the Sun. There are many Earth orbiting satellites that shine brightly and are easy to spot in the early evening or morning skies. Viewing equipment: Binoculars or a small telescope. Open clusters found along the plane of the galaxy, are loose aggregations of dozens or hundreds of young stars, usually not gravitationally bound together. Globular star clusters are gravitationally bound groups of thousands or millions of primarily old stars. These clusters look stunning despite their missile-like names. Bright comets are usually visible with a pair of binoculars or even the unaided eye. Viewing equipment: This month`s faint comets are not visible with the unaided eye and hence a telescope is a must. Comet Lemmon, PanSTARRS, NEAT and LINEAR can be seen throughout July. A new comet has been discovered on Jcalled Comet C/2013 N4 (Borisov). These icy bodies look like fuzzy balls of cotton, or nebulous objects, with gas and dust tails (only visible when close to the Sun). Viewing equipment: This month the four brightest and largest asteroids visible with binoculars are Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta, and ones requiring a small telescope are Iris, Flora and Bamberga. Often called minor planets, asteroids are mostly found circling the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Viewing equipment: If you know your stars, most planets are easy to spot with the unaided eye, but to see any features on its surface you need a small telescope at least. You can see it on the zenith from 7pm till it moves towards the Western horizon at 1am. Saturn is one of the most beautiful planets to look at with gorgeous white rings that appear open or edge-on depending on the planet’s tilt. Look at the Eastern horizon, from 4am to 6am. Other features like dark markings change due to dust storms caused by climatic changes. The red planet, shows white polar ice caps, which increase and decrease according to climatic changes. Both show phases just like the Moon-from crescent to full. The much brighter Venus is visible in the evening from 7pm to 9pm in the Western sky.
Visible on the Eastern horizon from 5am to 6am.Īlthough both planets are bright and shine in the white light of the sun, this month Mercury is visible early in the morning from 5am to 6am on the Eastern horizon. You identify it with its brown atmospheric bands, four of its brightest moons and the Great Red Spot-a large hurricane like feature on its gaseous atmospheric surface.
Viewing equipment: Few bright features can be seen with unaided eye, but to see craters and mares (sea like features) on the surface of the Moon, a pair of binoculars or a small telescope is required. Last Quarter, on July 29, is the phase in which the Moon looks half illuminated. This is also the time when the Moon is at Perigee or closest to Earth (358,402 km).