Summer Nights

The nights are finally getting longer again, not that you’ll really notice until late July, and the latest sunset of the year is Saturday this week. Also on Saturday the Moon is to the lower left of Saturn, there’s a guide on the blog

And this is quite an interesting month if you can stay awake, or are out in the early hour’s breaking and entering, Barbara. Because during the second half of June, six of the seven planets (not counting Earth) are positioned at dawn within a 100° span of sky, from low in the east to fairly high in the south. From left to right they're Mercury, the Venus-Mars pair, Uranus, and the Jupiter-Neptune pair, only Saturn isn’t joining the party

This comes 25 years after very the rare gathering of all seven planets — and then-planet Pluto — into a span of only 60° in January 1984.

But as usual it’s all happening in the predawn, between 3 and 4 am, over to the east.

We have a new moon this week and after 12:30 fairly dark skies, and with the arrival of summer, the Milky Way now arches across the eastern heavens after the last lingering twilight finally fades away. The Milky Way runs from Cassiopeia low in the north-northeast through lower Cepheus, then across Cygnus, the Summer Triangle, and Aquila, and down to Sagittarius and Scorpio in the south-southeast. It should be obvious as a bright arch over head.

Mercury is having a poor apparition deep in the glow of dawn. Look for it in morning twilight about 25° lower left of Venus and Mars. Binoculars will help.

Venus and Mars remain together due east during dawn. Venus is a dazzler; but Mars is getting brighter and is now only about 150 times fainter than Venus. They're only 2° or 3° apart this week, hardly more than a finger's width at arm's length. June 22nd was their conjunction date, when they're separated by 2.0°. Look for Mars to directly above Venus later in the week

Jupiter in Capricorn now rises before midnight and shines brightly in the south by dawn. The sharpest telescopic glimpses may come during morning twilight, when the atmospheric seeing sometimes turns very steady.

Saturn is still the only planet showing in the evening sky, and it’s still fairly dim because all year the rings' tilt to the Sun has been steadily decreasing, and accordingly, the rings have been getting darker and darker. Saturn is now becoming harder to observe as it moves lower in the west each evening.

Uranus is Pisces is between Venus and Jupiter before dawn.

Neptune in Capricorn remains only 3/4° from Jupiter, but it's 16,000 times fainter. And will be difficult to spot even with Binoculars

You may have noticed over the course of the last 18 months or so, that the planets tend to hang around the constellations of the zodiac, this is no coincidence. The solar system is essentially a huge flat disc centred on the sun and the constellations of the zodiac are on the same plane. The sun is in cancer at the moment, a constellation we obviously can’t see at the moment, Saturn is in Leo, Uranus is in Pisces and Jupiter is in Capricorn. The moon also moves through the Zodiac, hence there are endless variations of mumbo jumbo to be derived from all the limitless permutations.