During July, magnitude 5.8 Uranus can be spotted as a blue-green speck in binoculars and as a small 3.5 arc-seconds-wide disk through any telescope. On July 4, the far brighter planet Venus will pass 2.4 degrees to the south of Uranus. On July 20, the waning crescent moon will shine near Uranus while making a passage through the Pleiades.

Nearby will be the Bull's brightest star, orange Aldebaran, fairly conspicuous in its own right, yet still shining only a fraction as bright as Venus. Finally, after being out of sight for more than a month,

Nearly a week after Fourth of July fireworks illuminate the sky, the so-called Buck Moon will rise on July 10. The name dates back to the Maine Farmers’ Almanac, which assigned “Indian” names to full moons,