July 24, 2025: Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are easily visible before sunrise. Find a green star in Scorpius.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 5:37 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 8:17 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
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Venus Summary Article
Venus, Jupiter, Castor, and Betelgeuse
Three bright planets are easily visible before sunrise. An hour before sunup, brilliant Venus is about 20° above the eastern horizon. The planet outshines all other stars in the sky during the nighttime hours.
The Morning Star steps eastward in front of Taurus, nearly 15° to Aldebaran’s lower left, the constellation’s brightest star. It approaches Zeta Tauri, the Bull’s southern horn, passing 0.7° above the star in two mornings. This morning’s gap is 2.9°.
Venus’ moves eastward about 1°, the distance across two moon diameters, from morning to morning. It is overtaking bright Jupiter, less than 18° to its lower left. Their conjunction occurs on August 12th.
Gemini’s Castor and Orion’s Betelgeuse are making their first appearances, known as their heliacal risings, across the mid-northern latitudes. Use a binocular to look for them. Castor’s initial sighting is easier than Betelgeuse because its bluish color contrasts with the hues of early morning light, while Betelgeuse tends to blend with the colors. This morning Sirius is making its first appearance at 20° north latitude.
Spot Planet Uranus through a Binocular
Planet Uranus is visible through a binocular in the same field of view with the Pleiades star cluster, that rides on Taurus back in celestial artwork. The aquamarine planet is to the lower right of the cluster and about the same brightness as the stars 13 Tauri (13 Tau on the chart) and 14 Tauri (14 Tau).
Saturn in South
Rising around the midnight hour, Saturn is about halfway from the southern horizon to overhead this morning. While only 1% of Venus’ brightness, the Ringed Wonder outshines most of the stars in this morning’s sky. It slowly retrogrades in front of Pisces.
Look for the star Fomalhaut, the mouth of the Southern Fish, less than one-fifth of the way from the southern horizon to overhead, to Saturn’s lower right. Another star Deneb Kaitos, Cetus’ tail, is to Fomalhaut’s upper left and Saturn’s lower left.
Dim Neptune More Challenging to See
Dim Neptune is in the same binocular field with Saturn, though a dark sky is needed to see it, and finding it from a suburban setting is questionable from the stray glow from outdoor lighting. At least two hours before sunrise and the beginning of morning twilight, place Saturn at the center of the field of view. At this magnification, its rings are still not visible. Look for the stars 27 Piscium (27 Psc on the chart) and 29 Piscium (29 Psc). Notice their respective colors, yellow-white and blue-white. They are still 10 times brighter than Neptune.
Neptune is a dim bluish star to Saturn’s upper left. Another reddish star with an obscure catalog name, still twice as bright as Neptune, is to the upper right. Because of Neptune’s brightness and likely interference from outdoor light, attempt to look for Neptune every clear morning for the next 10 days until moonlight washes across the sky.
Mercury
Mercury is quickly moving toward inferior conjunction, between Earth and Sun, and a morning appearance next month with Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn, though all the planets are not visible simultaneously.
New Moon
The moon reaches its New moon phase at 2:11 p.m. Central Time today.
Mars after Sundown
This leaves Mars as the lone bright planet in the sky after sundown. An hour after sunset, the Red Planet is less than 15° above the western horizon. Dimming from its widening gap to Earth, Mars drops into evening twilight, setting over 10 minutes after the end of evening twilight.
Tonight, Mars is 11.6° to Denebola’s lower left, Leo’s tail, and over 30° to the lower right of Spica, Virgo’s brightest star, standing over 20° above the southwest horizon. Mars marches eastward and passes this star during September, when they are in much brighter twilight. It passes behind the sun early next year and begins to climb into the morning sky.
Look for Scorpius’ Green Star
Tonight, about two hours after the sun sets, Scorpius seems to be crawling across the southern horizon. Antares, the Scorpion’s heart, is 20° above the south-southwest horizon. The arachnid’s body curves toward the southern horizon then curves up ending at Shaula and Lesath at the stinger. The head is to Antares right and its claws, part of Libra, reach westward.
Graffias, meaning Crab, is at the top of a line of three stars somewhat resembling a vertical version of Orion’s belt. Through a telescope and magnifications around 80x, stars resolves into two stars. The main star is described as white, and sometimes the fainter companion is described as green. What color do you see? Make the observation and write what you saw in the comments.
Watch the morning planet grouping begin to form as Mercury races from east of the sun to the west side, appearing in the morning sky next month. Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are easy to see. Make multiple observations to see Uranus and Neptune.
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