Astronomy Magazine

Gianni Tumino, taken from Aci Trezza, Sicily, Italy Since antiquity, the land of the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey has been linked to the real-world location of Sicily, near Mount Etna. Local legend has it that the small Cyclopean Isles, located just offshore, are the stones thrown by the Cyclops at Odysseus’ ship as he escaped from Polyphemus.

Catch the Moon and Venus sinking toward the western horizon after sunset on July 17, with the Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111) coming into view above them as the sky darkens. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. July 16: The Moon passes the Lion’s heart The Moon passes 2° south of Venus at 1 P.M. EDT.

The lunar phase on July 20, 2026, is exactly the same as on July 20, 1969. Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio Friday, July 17 The Moon passes 2° south of Venus at 1 P.M. EDT. They are some 6° apart in the evening sky, sinking together in the west nearly side by side. You have plenty of time to observe, as they don’t set until about two hours after the Sun. Both are in the constellation Leo the Lion.

Shortly after sunset, catch the Moon and Venus together in Leo, near the Lion’s brightest star, Regulus. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. July 15: The Summer Triangle overhead The nearly three-day-old Moon passes 0.5° south of Regulus, the heart of Leo the Lion, at 9 P.M. EDT.

Asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa’s elongated surface appears in this image, captured by Tianwen-2 from about 12 miles (20 km) away on July 2, 2026. Measured against the 10-meter scale bar, the near-Earth asteroid works out to barely 20 meters long — about half the size ground-based telescopes had estimated. Credit: CNSA Nearly 400 days and a billion kilometers after leaving Earth, China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft has arrived at its target: the near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, also known as 2016 HO3.

Skip to content Mark Killion, taken from Beryl, Utah The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) is a dark, dense column of gas and dust about 2,400 light-years away in Cepheus, part of the larger IC 1396 emission region. The feature is being sculpted by radiation and winds from a nearby massive star, which ionizes the bright rim of the feature. The imager collected 21.6 hours of exposure through broadband and dual-band Hα/OIII filters with a 5-inch f/5 refractor and one-shot-color camera.

G189.6+3.3, a faint supernova remnant, appears as a mottled cloud of blues, greens and magentas, overlapping the well-known Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443; just right of center) in a multi-wavelength composite that strips away IC 443's bright emission to reveal its neighbor.

The Summer Triangle is a large asterism whose points are marked by the stars Vega (top left), Deneb (bottom left), and Altair (right). It lies high overhead on short summer nights. Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. July 14: Mars sits north of Aldebaran Now that summer is in full swing, let’s check in with the season’s most famous asterism: the Summer Triangle.

Mauve’s solar panels are folded flat and its telescope aperture sealed beneath a red "Remove Before Flight" cap. The CubeSat was photographed here during pre-launch testing, months before riding to orbit in November 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter mission. Credit: C3S LLC/Blue Skies Space Let the science begin: The world’s first commercial space telescope is up and running.

Mars sits 5° north of luminary Aldebaran in Taurus early this morning. Uranus is also in Taurus; it may be just visible to the naked eye from a dark site, and is easily picked up in binoculars or a telescope. Credit: Stellarium Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. July 13: A young cluster in Cygnus Mars passes 5° north of the red giant star Aldebaran in Taurus the Bull this morning at 3 A.M. EDT.