Astrophotography in July 2023: what to shoot in the night sky this coming month

The summer Milky Way and galactic core region over the formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, July 9, 2021, on a warm moonless night. This is a blend of 4 tracked exposures (2 to 3 minutes each) at f/2.8 for the sky and 3 untracked exposures (4 to 8 minutes) at f/5.6 for the foreground. An additional tracked exposure through a Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter adds some subtle glows to the bright stars. Two of the sky exposures were shot through a Kase Natural Night filter as a test, but it didn't make a big difference over the unfiltered images. All with the Canon Ra at ISO 1600 to 3200, and on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker, and with the Canon 15-35mm RF lens. No artificial lighting was employed here. Smoke from BC forest fires spoiled the transparency and contrast in the sky. (Photo by: Alan Dyer/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

With little or no astronomical darkness at the start of July in northern latitudes, some astrophotographers might think this month is a write-off for creating night sky images. Not so! July is one of the best few months of the year to get the Milky Way high in the sky as seen from the northern hemisphere – and, crucially, its bright center – while July’s full ‘Super Buck Moon’ is one of the brightest yet lowest-hanging of the year. 

Add plenty of conjunctions between the planets and the moon, the year’s first so-called supermoon, the peak of the Delta Aquariids meteor shower and 2023’s second ‘Manhattanhenge’ for New Yorkers and there’s plenty more to get excited about for astrophotographers in July 2023.