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Ephemeris: 07/17/2025 – Finding the celestial eagle, Aquila

July 17, 2025 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, July 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 9:23, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:14. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 12:42 tomorrow morning.

Aquila the eagle is a constellation that lies in the Milky Way. It’s in the southeastern sky as it gets dark. Its brightest star, Altair, is one of the stars of the Summer Triangle, a group of three bright stars dominating the eastern sky in the evening now. Altair, in the head of the eagle, is flanked by two slightly dimmer stars, the shoulders of the eagle. The eagle is flying northeastward through the Milky Way. Its wings are seen in the wing tip stars. A curved group of stars to the lower right of Altair is its tail. Within Aquila, the Milky Way shows many dark clouds as part of the Great Rift that splits it here. The other summer bird is Cygnus the swan above and left of Aquila, flying in the opposite direction. It was said this was the eagle that attended the god Jupiter.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

Aquila finder animation
Animated Aquila finder chart featuring its relation to the Summer Triangle stars. Created using Stellarium.
Aquila animation showing pattern with actual photograph
Aquila animation showing pattern with actual photograph showing the Milky Way. The photograph was taken in 2018 when the skies were dimmed by the smoke from wild fires out west and caused the reddish cast to the image. Credit: mine.

Categories: Constellations, Ephemeris Program, Mythology, Observing Tags: , , ,