Bright Planet Notes for July 2010:

Mercury: May become possible after sunset by mid-July and through to the end of July.

Venus: Visible most of the time, even during the day, but will brighten as it becomes more and more crescent-shaped. Seems non-intuitive, but remember: it's coming closer to Earth when it wanes crescent, so it appears larger, even though the amount of sunlit surface is diminishing.

Mars: Still visible in the west, but is slowly approaching the Sun and will be lost to it by the end of the month.

Jupiter: Rises in the east during the wee hours and won't be easily available in the evening until mid-October.

Saturn: Same as Mars.

Uranus: Same as Jupiter.

Neptune: Same as Jupiter.

New Moons for 2010: 1/15, 2/14, 3/15, 4/14, 5/14, 6/12, 7/11, 8/10, 9/8, 10/7, 11/6, 12/5.

Meteor showers for 2010 (green text is good)

Three of this year's showers (green text) are favorably absent most or all of the Moon, and offer the best viewing opportunities. Note that the best time to view meteor showers is usually between 2am and astronomical dawn. Also, the showers themselves occur for days before and after their peaks, and can still be worth watching, off-peak.

Clear Sky Clock for Chabot Space & Science Center This handy utility predicts what the skies are likely to be like within the next two days. It may take a minute to figure out, but after that, it's quite simple, and very useful.

Direct link for the weekend viewing prospects at Chabot Observatory (usually posted around 5pm on Friday and Saturday evening).

The lunar phase calendar (above) was created with a very cool program called Quick Phase, which generates all kinds of info on the phases of the moon. If you're interested in getting it yourself, click here.

*transit - to cross from the eastern half of the sky to the western half, or vice-versa. When an object transits in an east-to-west direction, it's at its highest elevation above the horizon. This is the best time to view any object, because the higher it is in the sky, the fewer layers of Earth's atmosphere will interfere with, and distort, the image.