The first quarter moon is on June 2. The full moon, the Honeymoon, is June 1, and the last quarter moon is June 18. Summer begins at 9:42 p.m. with the solstice, the longest day, with 14 hours of sunlight locally. The waning crescent moon passes above Saturn in the dawn on June 19 and just north of Venus on June 22. The moon is new on June 25. The waxing crescent moon passes Mercury in the west on June 26.
This June, Mercury passes Jupiter low in the northwest at dusk on June 5. Jupiter becomes lost in the Sun’s glare for the rest of the month, but Mercury is visible low in the west for the rest of June, with the nicest grouping with the crescent moon and the Gemini, Castor, and Pollux, all in a row in twilight; great photo op for smartphones. Mercury is at greatest elongation, 26 degrees east of the Sun, on July 4, but quickly gets lost in the Sun’s glare by mid-month.
Venus dominates the dawn sky. She reaches greatest western elongation, 46 degrees ahead of the rising sun, on June 1, and will appear half-lit in telescopes. After that, it pulls away from the earth, shrinking in size but appearing gibbous in phase for the next several months.
Mars is still visible in the western evening sky, and makes a nice grouping with Regulus in Leo on June 16, passing just over a lunar diameter (.8 degrees) north. While comparable in brightness, Mars of course, will be much redder than blue Regulus.
While Jupiter passes directly behind the Sun on June 24, Saturn is well placed for dawn observers, who can see the rings, edge on, for the last several weeks, tilting more open each morning. The rings continue opening until their solstice in 2032, when they will tilt 27 degrees toward the Sun and more than double the planet’s present brightness. It is still the brightest object in the southern fall sky now, in Pisces.
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit www.skymaps.com and download the map for the northern hemisphere skies in June.
The Big Dipper is almost overhead as twilight falls, and its pointers take you north to the Pole Star. If you drop south from the bowl of the Big Dipper, Leo the Lion is in the southwest. Note that the Egyptian Sphinx is based on the shape of this Lion in the sky. Taking the arc in the Dipper’s handle, we “arc” southeast to bright orange Arcturus, the brightest star of Spring. Cooler than our yellow Sun, and much poorer in heavy elements, some believe its strange motion reveals it to be an invading star from another smaller galaxy, now colliding with the Milky Way in Sagittarius in the summer sky. Moving almost perpendicular to the plane of our Milky Way, Arcturus was the first star in the sky where its proper motion across the historic sky was noted by Edmund Halley.
Spike south to Spica, the hot blue star in Virgo, then curve to Corvus the Crow, a four-sided grouping. North of Corvus, in the arms of Virgo, is where our large scopes will show members of the Virgo Supercluster, a swarm of over a thousand galaxies about 50 million light years distant.
South of Corvus lies the famed Southern Cross, but only its top three stars are barely visible on the Gulf horizon for us. But much of the rest of Centaurus is visible, and two notable deep sky objects beckon binocular viewers. The easiest is Omega Centauri, the grandest globular cluster in the sky. Visible as a circular blur with the naked eye, it can be resolved into some stars with even large binoculars. In my See Star S 50, it is a great sight with clear skies, despite being only eight degrees high in the south!
To the east, Hercules is well up, with the nice globular cluster M-13 marked on your sky map and visible in binoculars. The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega (from Carl Sagan’s novel and movie, “Contact”), rises in the NE as twilight deepens. Twice as hot as our Sun, it appears blue-white, like most bright stars. They are bright because they are hot, even though on the main sequence, fusing hydrogen like our Sun, they are only a little larger than our home star.
Northeast of Lyra is Cygnus, the Swan, flying down the Milky Way. Its bright star Deneb, at the top of the “northern cross,” is one of the luminaries of the Galaxy, about 50,000 times more luminous than our Sun and around 3,000 light years distant. Our solar system is orbiting the core of our own Galaxy every 250 million years, and is currently moving in the direction of a point, our Apex, midway between Deneb and Vega.
Under dark skies, note the “Great Rift,” a dark nebula in front of our solar system as we revolve around the core of the Milky Way in the Galactic Year of 250 million of our own years. The effect of our Sun and planets passing through such dusty regions as this is debated, and may affect our long-term climate and even our Ice Ages. Warning: This cooling can NOT be done in time to fix our present global warming issues.
To the east, Altair is the third brightest star of the summer triangle. It lies in Aquila the Eagle, and is much closer than Deneb; it lies within about 13 light years of our Sun. Use your binoculars to pick up many clusters in this rich region of our own Cygnus spiral arm, rising now in the east. The nearest spiral arms of our Milky Way are now on the eastern horizon, and may be mistaken for a cloud rising if you are not used to the transparency of rural skies. They arc overhead in the morning hours for restless campers. To the south, Antares is well up at sunset in Scorpius. It appears reddish (its Greek name means rival of Ares or Mars to the Latins) because it is half as hot as our yellow Sun; it is bright because it is a bloated red supergiant, big enough to swallow up our solar system all the way out to Saturn’s orbit! Scorpius is the brightest constellation in the sky, with 13 stars brighter than the pole star Polaris! Note the fine naked eye clusters M-6 and M-7, just to the left of the Scorpion’s tail. Just a little east of the Scorpion’s tail is the teapot shape of Sagittarius, which lies toward the center of the Milky Way. From a dark sky site, you can pick out the fine stellar nursery, M-8, the Lagoon Nebula, like a cloud of steam coming out of the teapot’s spout.
The Escambia Amateur Astronomers return to Casino Beach for our Pavilion Stargaze Season on the first quarter moon. Meet us south of the famed Beach Ball Water Tower and bring your smartphone to image the Sun (before sunset with our solar scopes), Moon, and constellations. We have free star charts and will show you what’s up. The gazes, if clear skies permit, will be on the Fridays and Saturdays for June 6-7, none in July, August 1-2, August 29-30, and September 26-27. If possible, download the Unistellar and Nocturne apps for your smartphones to capture live images with our WiFi-enabled eVscopes. We can have up to ten “observers” sharing the images of these amazing new systems. For deep skies with much less light pollution, on the Saturdays of the third quarter moon we continue our cooperation with the Florida State Parks at Big Lagoon State Park Our gazes for best imaging of the Milky Way, constellations, and other galaxies are on these Saturdays: June 21, July 19, August 16, September 13, and October 11. Clear skies permitting! On June 6, the PSC Planetarium presents “The Pink Floyd Planetarium Show” at 6 p.m. Obtain your tickets here.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook, visit our website for the club calendar. Email our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. Call Dr. Wayne Wooten at 850-291-9334 or email johnwaynewooten@gmail.com.
