Stargazing in Seattle
Bob Mulford
Venus will be visible low in the west shortly after Sunset for the next few months. Venus is chasing the Earth around the Sun, but will not catch up with us until the end of the year. The combined motion of Venus and the Earth results puts Venus in our evening sky for the remainder of 2021. Look for Venus as soon as the sky begins to get dark, which is about 9:45 PM for Seattle in July. Don't wait too long to look for this brilliant evening star; Venus sets around 10:30 PM this month. On Sunday July 11, Mars will be less than one degree to the left of Venus, and a two-day old, five percent illumined crescent Moon will be about 4 degrees to the right. The next evening, a ten percent illuminated Moon will be higher in the sky, but Mars and Venus will have moved even closer together and will be separated by only 36 arc-minutes (0.6 degrees). Venus is about two hundred times brighter than Mars (almost six magnitudes), and you may need to use binoculars to locate Mars next to brilliant Venus.
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