For June 2026, the last quarter moon is on June 8. The waning crescent moon passes above Saturn on the morning of June 10. It passes above Mars on June 12. It is new on June 14, and by June 16, the waxing crescent moon is passing to the north of Jupiter, and then occults Venus during the afternoon of June 17. The half-lit bright disk of Venus will disappear behind the dark side of the moon at 2:41 p.m., and appear on the bright limb below Mare Crisium at 4:01 p.m. CDT. By twilight, the moon will be to the upper left of Venus, still a good photo op. The first quarter moon occurs on the same day as the Summer Solstice, our longest day. Locally, summer begins at 3:25 a.m. CDT. The June Full Moon, the Honeymoon, is June 29.
This June Mercury appears below Jupiter and Venus in the SW twilight during the first three weeks of June, and vanishes into the dusk by June 24. Venus overtakes slower-moving Jupiter in the west on June 9, passing just 1.6 degrees above the fainter planet. Their conjunction will be easy to capture with many smartphones in twilight from June 1 through the passing of the Moon near them on June 16-17.
Mars is low in the dawn in Aries as June begins, and Saturn a little higher up in Pisces. Saturn’s rings are now much more open than last year, 7 degrees wide now. It returns to the evening sky this fall.
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 SW. Note the Egyptian Sphinx is based on the shape of this Lion in the sky. Taking the arc in the Dipper’s handle, we “arc” SE 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.
Just a few degrees above Omega, Centaurus A is the most powerful radio galaxy in our neighborhood. Also known as NGC 5128, the reason for its activity is obvious even with my Evscope 4”.Two great galaxies, each as massive as our own Milky Way, are colliding and merging before our eyes. In the middle is a giant elliptical, a ball of billions of older reddish stars but a thousand times more populated than Omega. Its black hole is pulling the core of a spiral galaxy, not that different from our own, toward the core, while the spiral arms of the victim still lie silhouetted in front of the collision. All this collision of gas and dust is stirring up star formation at a furious pace; hence it is called a “starburst” galaxy, and its output of all forms of energy is indeed off the scale.
To the east, Hercules is well up, with the nice globular cluster M-13 marked on your sky map and visible in binocs. 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 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 in time to fix our present global warming issues!
To the east, Altair is the third bright 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 binocs 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. Note the Scorpion is well shown rising to the left of Centaurus in my iPhone shot. 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 19-20, July 24-25, August 14-15, September 18-19, and October 16-17. 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 the best imaging of the Milky Way, constellations, and other galaxies are on these Saturdays: June 6, July 11, August 8, September 5, and October 3. Clear skies permitting! Again, download the apps for imaging the constellations, deep sky objects, and the Milky Way under dark skies.
On June 6, the PSC Planetarium presents “The Pink Floyd Planetarium Show” at 6 PM. Obtain your tickets through Purple Pass PSC Planetarium Tickets.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook, visit our website at https://sites.google.com/view/escambiaastronomers. 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.
