JULY ASTRONOMY

By Robert Victor

Soon-to-depart Venus reaches peak brilliance in July. With an optical aid, it presents an ever-thinner crescent. Binoculars and a vantage point with unobstructed views toward the west will become increasingly essential to follow Venus, two other planets and a star—down into the evening twilight glow.

Jupiter and Saturn, 62 to 66° apart and well up in the predawn sky, suffer no barrier to observation—except, for some, the early hour. The Summer Milky Way, from a dark site on a clear moonless night, is recommended to all.

In July, Venus takes the plunge: On July 1 at sunset, as seen from the Coachella Valley, Venus appears 29° up in the west, and 41° to the upper left of the setting sun. That evening, Venus sets

2.4 hours after the sun. By Aug. 1, Venus will be only 5° up at sunset, and 18° to the upper left of the sun. Venus will then follow the sun below the horizon by only 27 minutes. Venus’ distance narrows, from within 46 million miles of Earth on July 1, to within 29 million miles on Aug. 1. The apparent size of Venus’ disk grows from 35” (arcseconds) to 55”, while the fraction illuminated wanes from 31 percent on July 1, to a slim 5 percent on Aug. 1. The apparent size is large enough for the crescent to be resolved with ordinary binoculars of 7 or 8 power. To succeed, find Venus very soon after sunset. Having the planet near greatest brilliancy at magnitude -4.7 in first half of July makes sightings in the daytime and bright twilight easier. When searching for Venus in daytime, take care to avoid pointing your optics at the sun!

Binoculars are also useful to follow the pairs and trios formed by planets and stars low in the western twilight glow, as plotted on our evening twilight sky map. On June 30, Venus approached within 3.6° to the west (lower right) of Mars in a quasi-conjunction, and now begins to fall back. On July 4, look for a patriotic gathering of red Mars. 3.8° to the upper left of white Venus, and 3.4° to the lower right of blue Regulus, heart of Leo, the Lion. All three fit within a field 7 degrees wide. Compared to Venus, Mars and Regulus are faint, magnitude +1.8 and +1.4. Venus and Regulus appear within 5° from July 9-25, and reach a minimum separation of 3.5° on July 15 and 16, as Venus passes below Regulus. This is another quasi-conjunction, since Venus approaches within 5° of Regulus without overtaking it. Mars fits within the same 5° field on July 9 and 10, forming a trio, at its most compact on July 9, 4.7° across. On July 10, Mars appears 0.7° (minimum distance) above Regulus and 4.9° to the upper left of Venus. Mercury enters the mix by mid-month, but you’ll need binoculars and an unobstructed view, as it remains very low in twilight. During the week of July 16-22, look to the lower right of Venus, by 17° on July 16, and 10° on July 21.

As Venus sinks lower into bright twilight, and Mercury is slightly higher daily, you’ll be looking to the upper right of Venus the following week, by 6° on July 24, and 5° (least separation) on July 26. If you can still find zero-magnitude Mercury on July 28, look for fainter Regulus just one-quarter of a degree to its right.

The waxing crescent moon overtakes Mercury, Venus, Regulus and Mars from July 18-21— all twilight gatherings accessible with binoculars! Follow the moon past Spica on July 24 and Antares on July 27-28, until it’s full on Aug. 1.

Saturn (magnitude +0.8 to +0.6), approaching its opposition in late August, rises south of east in the late evening in July, from 3.1 hours after sunset on the 1st, to 1.3 hours after on the 31st. Bright Jupiter (magnitude -2.2 to -2.4) rises in the east-northeast around 2 a.m. at the start of July, and about a quarter hour after midnight at month’s end.

Predawn skies: Follow the waning moon past Saturn in the south-southeast to south on July 7; Jupiter in the east on July 11-12; and the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters and Aldebaran, in Taurus, on July 13-14. The “V” of Aldebaran and the Hyades points through 2.5-magnitude Alpha and 4.1-magnitude Delta in Cetus, 7° apart, and another 6° in a straight line beyond Delta to the long-period variable star Mira, expected to reach peak brightness near third magnitude this month. An hour before sunrise by late in July, Orion has risen in the east, while the Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb and Altair) is high in the west.

Stars and the Milky Way: Now that the aforementioned Summer Triangle is in the eastern sky at nightfall, and Scorpius is in the south, we know that the season for evening viewing of the Milky Way has arrived. On dark, moonless nights, look for the Teapot asterism formed by eight bright stars of Sagittarius, the Archer. It follows Antares and the Scorpion across the southern sky, while the Summer Triangle climbs high in the east. The Milky Way looks like a cloud of steam rising out of the spout of the

Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight For July,

2023

This sky chart is drawn for latitude 34 degrees north, but may be used in southern U.S. and northern Mexico.

Evening mid-twilight occurs when the Sun is 9° below the horizon. July 1: 46 minutes after sunset.

15: 46 " " "

31: 44 " " "

Teapot, and passing through the Summer Triangle, along the neck of Cygnus, the Swan. As we face the Great Sagittarius Star Cloud above the Teapot spout, we’re looking toward the inner regions of our Milky Way galaxy. As we examine the Cygnus Star Cloud, we’re facing ahead of the sun in its revolution around the galactic center, into our own nearby spiral arm, which binoculars readily resolve into countless stars!

The Milky Way is in an ideal position for observation in a dark, moonless sky, with the center of our galaxy highest and due south, in Palm Springs on Sunday, July 9 at 11:22 p.m., getting four minutes earlier each night, until Friday, July 21, at 10:34 p.m. There are other good viewing times! On earlier dates or earlier in the night, the Milky Way won’t be quite as high in the sky. Later, southern parts of the Milky Way descend closer to the horizon. Avoid bright moonlight or areas with bright artificial lights. On the full moon night of July 2-3, and again on the evening of July 29 (when 90% full), the bright moon is at its southernmost place, in Sagittarius, and creates poor viewing conditions.

The July 2023 Sky Calendar illustrates many of the events described in this column. It is available by subscription at www. abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar.

The Astronomical Society of the Desert will host a star party on Saturday, July 15, at Sawmill Trailhead, a site in the Santa Rosa Mountains at elevation 4,000 feet. For maps and directions, visit astrorx.org.

Robert C. Victor originated the Abrams Planetarium monthly Sky Calendar in October 1968 and still produces issues occasionally, including May and July 2023. He enjoys being outdoors sharing the beauty of the night sky and other wonders of nature.

AFTER 18 MONTHS of negotiating— and bickering amongst themselves—the three lower Colorado River basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada reached an agreement on how to best conserve the river’s valuable water supply in the near term.

Although the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation had set a Jan. 31 deadline for the three lower-basin states and their four upper-basin colleagues (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming) to deliver a plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water in 2023 and years beyond, no consensus was reached until May 22.

On that date, the lower-basin states sent a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation detailing a conservation strategy to save 3 million acre-feet of Colorado River water between now and Jan. 1, 2027. California committed to saving 400,000 acre-feet of water per year—which means that a bit more than half of the total savings will be achieved by California alone.

What does this mean for the Coachella Valley water picture over the coming four years, presuming the proposal is accepted by the Bureau of Reclamation? Well … it’s complicated.

To start, let’s go back to November 2022, before Reclamation’s deadline, when the Coachella Valley Water District—one of the two valley water agencies, along with the Imperial Irrigation District, which has direct access to Colorado River water—submitted two of its own proposals to the bureau. After working closely with Reclamation, the CVWD board of directors recently approved one proposal, the Replenishment Facilities Curtailment Program. The second program, which would involve federal compensation for water savings by CVWD’s east valley agricultural sector, is still in discussion between Reclamation and CVWD, and any agreement would require approval by the CVWD board.

Jim Barrett is the general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District. On June 8, he spoke to the Coachella Valley Association of Governments’ Energy and Environmental Resources Committee about the Colorado River’s impacts on the local economy— and he began his remarks by discussing the Replenishment Facilities Curtailment Program. It calls for the district to leave 35,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water per year in Lake Mead, as a recurring conservation contribution, through the end of 2026.

“While there’s tension between the different parts of the community, like municipalities and agriculture, what we’ve attempted to do is minimize the impact locally by not proposing to curtail service to anybody who’s using water now,” Barrett said.

While that’s good news to the more than 100,000 business and residential customers of the district, which serves the middle and eastern portions of the Coachella Valley, it means the CVWD will completely cease groundwater replenishment at its Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility in La Quinta.

“What we did starting last year (in October) was suspend our replenishment operations in the east valley,” Barrett said. “Our deliveries in the lower valley to the Levy facility have been consistent over time, because the Colorado River water deliveries have been consistent over time. We have put in about 500,000 acre-feet since 2010. … Moving forward, what we’re doing is suspending the 35,000 acre-feet each year to leave (that) in Lake Mead. We’ll still have about 3,000 acre-feet that we’ll run through the plant to keep the pumps from seizing up.”

Will the cessation of groundwater replenishment have any negative impacts?

“We will be watching to see how conditions in the east valley change during this period,” Barrett said. “It’s important to us to recognize how the basin responds, not only to replenishment, but also to the suspension of replenishment.”

He then sounded a reassuring note: “We do have a large expansion of our irrigation system in the east valley for agriculture that’s just about done. We’re waiting on power drops so we can get our pumps moving. That should help with some of the replenishment, since we estimate about a 30-35% return flow to the aquifer from irrigation that takes place for agriculture.”

The Colorado River water-conservation proposal is basically a pay-to-conserve deal. Through the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed last year, the U.S. government will disburse money to the three lower basin states, to pay agriculture businesses to cut back on water usage by artificially restricting production for months or years at a time.

But the CVWD deal has a twist: Since the CVWD’s contribution involves water that would have gone toward aquifer replenishment, the IRA funding it will receive at $400 per acre-feet will bring the district about $14 million in new revenue per year through 2026. No customers will need to be compensated for artificially restricting production efforts, so the CVWD will be able to keep those funds. How will this revenue windfall be utilized?

“The CVWD Board must discuss/decide how the money will be used,” said Lorraine Garcia, the CVWD communication manager, to the Independent via email. That prompted a follow-up question: Could these revenues be used to reduce customers’ monthly water service fees? She did not reply as of this writing.

TINA SHIELDS is one of two waterdepartment managers employed by the Imperial Irrigation District, which serves some water customers in the east valley, as well as Imperial County. In a recent phone interview, the Independent asked her what the IID expected its compensation arrangement with the Bureau of Reclamation would be from now until the end of 2026.

“We submitted a funding proposal … which is an open solicitation where you propose a volume in a specific time period, and a price,” Shields said. “Then you work with Reclamation to get to a common agreement. We’ve had productive discussions, but as of yet, we (haven’t reached an agreement).”

The IID is committing to conserving 250,000 acre-feet of water per year—a much larger amount than the CVWD. However, the funding the IID would receive from the federal government will mostly be paid to the agricultural businesses in the IID service area, which will need to employ various strategies to reduce their annual water use. Shields admitted that meeting the commitment will be a challenge.

“This year is halfway over,” Shields said, “and we still don’t have a funding agreement and authorization that would be necessary to move forward. So as the year goes on, IID will not be able to reach 250,000 acre-feet in water conservation this year, but we’re hoping to get that funding agreement sooner rather than later. All of this is contingent upon whether contracts can be developed (with customers), if the funding agreement is in place, and if permits are issued by the appropriate resource agencies. It all needs IID board approval. So there’s a lot to be accomplished.”

While The Agreement

announced on May 22 may help in the short-term, it includes no strategies for long-term, post2026 Colorado River conservation.

Chris Harris is the executive director of the state of California’s Colorado River Board. At the June 8 CVAG committee meeting, he expressed optimism that a deal can get done.

“We anticipate the Department of Interior will be releasing a notice in the Federal Register sometime (in June) indicating that they’re going to be kicking off a formal (National Environmental Policy Act) process to begin developing the next set of guidelines for the post-2026 framework—in other words, the long-term guidelines that will replace the 2007 guidelines,” he said. “But I think we have a foundation now that we can build upon. The states are working together well now, better than we had been, say, six months ago. I think all of us remain cautiously optimistic that we can do the good work that needs to be done over the next few months— and then over the next 3 1/2 years—to get us to a set of guidelines that can help stabilize the reservoir system over the long term.”

Shields explained how the IID is approaching this conundrum.

“Our (initial) goal is to maximize our on-farm efficiency-conservation program,” Shields said. “If we had additional monies, we can add to the funding for the farmers; then they can implement more expensive measures, which right now are costprohibitive. However, saving 250,000 acre-feet is a really big number, and I doubt that we can get that much more water out of our on-farm conservation programs. So we’re working with our growers to develop alternative programs.

“The obvious one is fallowing, although I hate that, and it’s one of our measures of last resort,” Shields continued. (Fallowing refers to leaving land without crops.) “Our growers are working on developing what would be considered a deficit irrigation program, where you have low-yield (plantings) that require high water use, and you shut the water off for a 60-day period, and then you water it back, and it is able to withstand that shortterm without irrigation. We have some other growers who are interested in programs that would allow them to convert to lower-wateruse crops, or other potential ideas. Once we have the funding locked down, we will then take to our board the various options that we’ve developed in concert with our growers.”

Ultimately, Shields said, the IID will prioritize programs that support farming.

“It’s too important to our community,” she said. “We’re an agricultural community, and one in every six jobs is directly related to agriculture. We’re interested in helping the river out, because that’s our long-term water supply. Still, we don’t want to kill our community in a back-handed way. You know, farming communities like to farm. It’s what we do. It’s more than just a business. It’s people’s livelihood. It’s about family, and often the employees are your family members and have been for generations.

“The longer-term agreements are going to be tough. But the history of the Colorado River is collaboration. It may get a little tenuous at times, but we all know that we’re better off plotting our own future together, rather than having the regulatory agencies do something that ends up in court. The history of water litigation is that it takes decades, so that’s not a productive path.

“We’re going to stand by our water rights, and we’ll work to develop solutions that work for our community and our state. Frankly, the other states are going to have to go through some tough things that we’ve dealt with already.”