July 8
The Most Beautiful
Sun Position
The Sun is in Cancer at about +22.0° declination. Northern Hemisphere summer is full; Southern Hemisphere midwinter continues with clear, cool nights favorable for observing.
Sky Highlight
No named meteor shower peaks on July 8. Boötes is well-placed in the western evening sky for Northern Hemisphere observers at this time of year, making colored double stars in the constellation rewarding targets in small telescopes. Southern observers see Boötes low in the northwest.
Deep Sky Object
NGC 5248, a barred spiral galaxy in Boötes roughly 59 million light-years away. It has prominent spiral arms and an active star-forming nucleus, but requires at least a medium amateur telescope to see clearly. Best placed in Northern Hemisphere evenings at this time of year.
Featured Star
Izar (ε Boo) is a double star in Boötes about 203 light-years away, consisting of an orange giant (K0II) paired with a white main-sequence star (A2V), classified together as a striking color-contrast pair. The astronomer William Smyth nicknamed it 'Pulcherrima' (the most beautiful) and it remains a showpiece for small telescopes, though the pair requires at least 75mm aperture and steady seeing to split.
Around This Date
- July 8, 1994Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 began its series of impacts with Jupiter, with Fragment A striking first, the first direct observation of a collision between solar system bodies.
- July 16, 1994Fragment G of Shoemaker-Levy 9 produced the largest impact of the sequence, leaving a dark scar in Jupiter's atmosphere larger than Earth that persisted for weeks.
Two stars, four centuries of being pointed at by astronomers. Izar earns its nickname every clear night.