Last week, the moon experienced a supermoon, and then a conjunction with the planet Saturn. This week, the moon continues to wane and cruises past Jupiter.
The chart shows the view looking south-east from London in the early hours of 19 July, at about 0400 BST. The moon will be just below the bright point of the giant planet Jupiter. It will be a waning gibbous moon with about 65% of its visible surface illuminated, rapidly approaching the “half-moon” phase known as last quarter. Both the moon and Jupiter are bright enough to be seen in the pre-dawn twilight sky.
Those that tracked the moon last week will be gaining a vivid sense of the way it moves night after night, rising later and later and changing its phase accordingly. After full moon, which rises more or less at sunset, the moon rises later and later. After last quarter, it becomes a morning object, moving ever closer to the sun in preparation for new moon, when it will disappear into the sun’s glare for a few days before being reborn in the evening sky. From the southern hemisphere, the conjunction can be seen in the eastern sky around midnight.
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