This morning, July 13th, the sky was generally overcast with thin status type clouds in most directions, including the northeast where the comet was just starting to appear over the trees marking my local horizon. Fortunately the clouds were still transparent enough for the comet to be just barely visible to the naked-eye, but very visible with time exposure pictures.
I was hoping to position my camera so that the Baseball player would look as if he were swinging at the comet but the clouds started to thicken in that direction as I moved off the road and into some tall grasses.
The other planets that were very visible yesterday morning were hidden or blurred by the clouds. Jupiter shined through the clouds but not Saturn or Mars. The Moon light was reflecting off clouds brightening the sky in that direction. And Venus and Aldebaran were somewhat visible but it took a time exposure picture to catch the light from the rest of the stars making the v-shaped part of the Hyades.
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- Comet 2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
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- Comet 2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
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- Venus and the Hyades
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Does our Moon actually go around the Earth as this graphic shows? From our perspective on the Earth the Moon appears to circle around the Earth. However, in reality, the Moon orbits the Sun together with the Earth*
There will also be a partial 
Saturday July 4th, as the Earth continues its annual trek around the Sun, the Earth reaches a point in its orbit that is called aphelion. Aphelion is the greatest distance that separates the Earth from the Sun, and we are the furthest from the Sun for the year at this point in the orbit. So, at 12 UT (7 am CDT) on Saturday July 4th the Earth is 1.0167 AU (94,507,635 miles, 152,095,295 km) from the Sun.
In Astronomy the shape of a planet’s orbit is called eccentricity, with 0 being a circle and 1 a straight line. Any value between 0 and 1 represents an ellipse. The shape of the Earth’s orbit is so close to being circular that the apparent size of the Sun does not appear to change as this animated graphic shows. The difference between perihelion and aphelion is about 3%. 
Sunday June 21st the new Moon will be crossing the plane of the ecliptic moving north. This is known as the 
Whenever our Moon at either new or full phase crosses the plane of the ecliptic, a node crossing, there will be an eclipse of the Sun with a new Moon, or a lunar eclipse with the full Moon phase. On the 21st the new Moon will be aligned with the Sun for a solar eclipse. 
There is no ‘diamond bead’ effect, no corona like what is seen with a total solar eclipse. This is because the Moon and our Sun appear to be about the same size in the sky with the exception that the Moon’s orbit is more elliptical than the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This means that the Moon can be closer or further away during a solar eclipse. With this annular solar eclipse the Moon is further away, appears smaller than the Sun, and at mid-eclipse leaves an annulus, a ‘ring of fire’ around the Sun as this animated graphic is showing.
Does our Moon actually go around the Earth as many graphics show? From our perspective on the Earth the Moon appears to circle around the Earth. However, in reality, the Moon orbits the Sun together with the Earth*
Northern hemisphere spring comes to an end and its summer begins on Saturday June 20st at 21:45 UT (4:45 pm CDT) when the Sun ‘reaches’ the celestial coordinates of 23.5o north declination and 6 hours right ascension. With respect to the Earth’s surface the Sun is described as over the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5o, north latitude of the Earth’s equator. At this same time according to 
