A series of eclipses of Saturn's satellite Rhea start in July 2008
Orbital diagrams for the inner planets December 2007 to March 2008, inner planets April to July 2008, July to November 2008 and the outer planets for 2008.
| Date (NZDT) | Diary of Solar System Events in July 2008 for New Zealand |
| July 1 | Mars, mag. 1.6 at closest to Regulus, magnitude 1.4 |
| July 2 | Mercury at greatest elongation, 22° west of Sun. |
| July 2 | Moon at perigee, its closest to the Earth for the Lunar month, 359515 km. |
| July 3 | New Moon at 2:19 pm NZST (02:19 UT). |
| July 4 | Earth at aphelion, greatest distance from Sun for the year, 152.1 million km. |
| July 6 | 13% lit Moon 3° from Regulus, in a line up with the star, Mars and Saturn, evening sky. |
| July 9 | Jupiter, at opposition. |
| July 10 | Moon at first quarter 4:35 pm NZST (04:35 UT). |
| July 10 | 52% lit Moon 4° from star Spica, magnitude 1.1, evening sky, closer after midnight. |
| July 10/11 | Mars, magnitude 1.7 and Saturn, magnitude 0.8, 40' apart, evening sky. |
| July 14 | Moon at apogee, its greatest distance from the Earth for the Lunar month, 405452 km. |
| July 14/15 | 86.5% lit Moon occults the star Antares, magnitude 1.1, visible from all of New Zealand and southern and western parts of Australia. |
| July 17 | almost full Moon just over 2° from Jupiter. |
| July 18 | Full Moon at 7:59 pm NZST (07:59 UT). |
| July 23 | 95% lit Moon 1° from Neptune,
magnitude 7.9.
Occultation of Neptune visible eastern Siberia, Japan and NW Pacific Ocean. |
| July 25/26 | 82% lit Moon 4.5° from Uranus, magnitude 5.8, late evening and morning sky. |
| July 26 | Moon at last quarter 6:42 am NZST (Jul 25, 18:42 UT). |
| July 30 | Mercury at superior conjunction. |
| July 30 | Moon at perigee, its closest to the Earth for the Lunar month, 365885 km, (2nd perigee for July). |
Return to Top of page. Diary of events. RASNZ home page
MERCURY starts July in the morning sky, rising an hour and three-quarters before the Sun. The planet will be visible as a magnitude 0.5 starlike object, low and almost round to the north-east. On July 1 it will be at about half the height of the 1st magnitude star Aldebaran 50 minutes before sunrise. Betelgeuse, in Orion and a similar magnitude to the planet, will be almost level with Mercury and some 16° to its right.
Mercury it at its greatest elongation, some 22° from the Sun on the morning of July 2. Following this Mercury will start moving back towards the Sun, so that it rises closer to the time of sunrise. By the morning of July 11 this will be 80 minutes before the Sun. But the planet will also be a magnitude brighter.
During the rest of July Mercury will continue to brighten but also get closer to the Sun, so that it gets lower in the morning twilight and making observation more difficult and becoming impossible in the second part of the month as it closes in on the Sun. It finally reaches superior conjunction at the far side of the Sun on July 30.
VENUS will have moved into the evening sky, setting soon after the Sun. On July 1 the planet will still be too close to the Sun to observe. By the end of July, Venus will have moved sufficiently far from the Sun to be briefly visible very low between west and northwest. Even then it will set within an hour of the Sun.
MARS sets mid evening throughout July, so is best observed as the sky darkens once the Sun is down. The planet passes the star Regulus on July 1 when the two will be just over 40' apart, a little more than the diameter of the full Moon. The star will be slightly brighter than Mars. Then over the next few nights, Mars will close on in on Saturn. They will be closest on the evenings of July 10 and 11 when the two will again be just over 40' apart. Mars will pass above Saturn and be the fainter by almost a magnitude.
Half way in time between the two conjunctions, on the evening of July 6, the crescent Moon will join the party. The four objects, Moon, Regulus, Mars and Saturn will be spread out along a diagonal line to the northwest. The diagram shows their appearance at 6 pm, a few of the brighter nearby stars are also shown. The circle represents a field 5° in diameter.
After its encounter with Saturn, Mars will continue to move to the east away from Saturn until at the end of July, the two are 10.5° apart.
JUPITER is at opposition on July 9 when it is the opposite side of the Earth to the Sun. On July 9, Jupiter will then rise at sunset, set at sunrise and be due north and at its highest at local midnight, in fact about 12.30pm in New Zealand. Jupiter is well south of the equator and so will get to be very high in the sky, within a degree of the height of the Sun at midsummer.
The planet will be well placed for viewing from mid evening on when it will be to the east. Binoculars will show up the four Galilean satellites, although at any one time, it is likely that they will not all be visible as they move into Jupiter's shadow, or move behind or in front of the planet. Details of the times of such events are on the satellites pages.
A few nights after Jupiter is at opposition, the almost full Moon will be some 2.5° from Jupiter in the late evening. Earlier at 6 pm, Jupiter will be low in the east with the Moon above it about a degree further away. The Moon will then be also about a degree below the 2.1 magnitude star Nunki, which may be just visible to the eye despite the Moon's glare. The Moon and Jupiter are in fact closest at 3 am the following morning, when just over 2° apart.
SATURN, in Leo, will get steadily lower in the evening sky, so that by the end of July it will have set by 8 pm. As noted for Mars the Moon will line up with the two planets and Regulus on July 6. On the following night,the Moon now 21% lit, will in fact be slightly closer to Saturn, 6° away and directly above the planet.
By July 31, Mars will have moved to be above and a little to the right of Saturn visible in the early evening. Also by then Venus will be below Saturn, so that now it, Regulus, Saturn and Mars form a steep line. To see all four it will be necessary to start looking about 6 pm, that is fairly soon after sunset. The first object to come into view will be Venus, very low, between west and northwest. The star, Saturn and Mars will appear a little while later, maybe before Venus sets. Mars, the highest object, will be about 25° higher than Venus.