We’re into the shortest nights of the year, so good stargazing can’t really begin until after 10 p.m., and the show is pretty much over by 4:30 a.m. Make sure to get your afternoon nap so you can enjoy nature’s late, late summer star show.
One of the biggest astronomical events this month is the conjunction of the bright planets Jupiter and Venus in the early evening western sky. They’re the brightest star-like objects in the night sky. Even in the most light polluted skies you can easily see them, getting closer and closer to each other from night to night as the month goes on. By the end of June and into the first days of July Jupiter and Venus will seem to be practically touching in a very tight celestial hug. Actually they’re nowhere near other, they’re just in nearly the same line of site.
Through a small telescope Venus will appear as a very bright cloud covered planet that looks like a half-moon. And it will become crescent-shaped toward the end of the month. Because Venus’s orbit around the sun lies within Earth’s orbit, Venus goes through shape changes, or phases, like the moon, as the angle between Earth, Venus, and the sun keeps changing.
Jupiter is much more fun to look at, because you can easily see up to four of its orbiting moons that resemble tiny stars on either side of the planet. You might even see some of Jupiter’s cloud bands stretching across the 88,000 mile-wide planet.
The full moon is officially Tuesday night this month, and will be on almost the farthest track to the south that a full moon will take this year. Unfortunately, stargazing will be seriously washed out by moonlight most of this week, but it will be a whole lot better next week. The full moon, however, will help you find the planet Saturn in the early evening southeastern sky this week. On Monday night the moon will be just to the lower right of Saturn, and on Tuesday night the moon will be just to the upper left of the ringed wonder of the solar system. There’s no mistaking Saturn since it will be the brightest star-like object in that part of the sky. Even with a small telescope you can see the ring system on Saturn. I’ll have much more on Saturn and how to observe it next week in my Starwatch column.
The transition to summer skies is just about complete. The stars and constellations of winter are pretty much gone from our evening skies, all setting well before the sun. The only bright winter stars left are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini the Twins; toward the end of evening twilight you can see them side-by-side in the very low northwestern sky.
If you lie back on that reclining lawn chair and look straight overhead toward the zenith you’ll easily see the Big Dipper, and not far from the Dipper’s handle you’ll see a bright orange star. That’s Arcturus, the second brightest star in the sky, which is about 36 light years or 208 trillion miles away. The light that we see tonight from Arcturus, about 25 times the diameter of our sun, left that star when Nixon was our President. Arcturus is also the brightest star in the constellation Bootes the hunting farmer, which actually looks more like a giant nocturnal kite with Arcturus at the tail of the kite.
In the low southeast skies near Saturn there’s another ruddy star. That’s Antares, a star so big that if you put it in our solar system instead of our sun, its outer edge would reach almost to Jupiter. We’d be somewhere near the inner core of Antares, the star at the heart of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Look to the upper right of Antares and you’ll see three stars lined up diagonally that mark the head and stinger of the great sky beast.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist.
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