Night Sky Tonight: Guide to stargazing in June 2026

In this guide we'll reveal what you can see in the night sky tonight, and throughout the month.

Our guide is centred around what's visible from the UK, but all northern hemisphere observers should be able to use it, with the odd adjustment to stated times.

June 2026 astronomy highlights

• All month: Noctilucent cloud season
• 9 June: Venus lies 1.6° north of Jupiter
• 15 June: Mercury is at greatest eastern elongation (evening)
• 17 June: Bright Venus lies 0.7° north of the waxing crescent Moon
• 29 June: Tonight's low full Moon is a micromoon

In our guide, we use Universal Time (UT) and British Summer Time (BST). UT is the standard time used by astronomers around the world. BST is one hour ahead of UT.

We also use RA (Right ascension)and dec. (declination).

These coordinates are the night sky’s equivalent of longitude and latitude, describing where an object is on the celestial ‘globe’.

For help with these, read our guide to celestial coordinates.

If you're south of the equator, find out what you can see in the Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight.

Family stargazing tip for June 2026

The Venus and Jupiter conjunction comes to a head this month, with the planets at their closest separation on the evening of 9 June.

Despite the bright twilight, this is an opportunity to teach a bit of astrophotography. If you have access to a smartphone or camera, let youngsters have a go at trying to catch a photo of the two bright planets.

A phone’s camera is easiest for this, autofocusing on the obvious horizon below. Try to keep the camera as steady as possible, leaning against a solid structure if it helps.

Summer solstice

The Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice is on 21 June. In the UK, nights are no longer able to get properly dark, because the Sun’s angular distance below the northern horizon in the middle of the night is too small to allow this to happen.

With most of the planets now out of the way too, you might think that you’ll need to take an enforced break from stargazing, but this isn’t the case, fortunately.

Noctilucent clouds

The eternal twilight, which occurs at this time of year, works with an odd situation in the atmospheric layer, known as the mesosphere.

Counterintuitively, around the solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere, the temperature around 80km up dips to an annual minimum.

Any water vapour present becomes super-cooled and anything passing through it, acts as a seeding agent around which tiny ice crystals form.

Seeding agents can be introduced artificially, for example from rocket exhausts, but a more reliable and regular source is from meteor dust, the tiny fragments left behind when a meteor vaporises, at more-or-less the same altitude.

If conditions are right, ice-sheet clouds form in a narrow layer around 82km up.

As the Sun passes 6°-16° beneath the horizon, its light can reflect off these sheets under deep twilight conditions, giving us a display of night-shining or noctilucent clouds, NLCs for short.

June and July are the optimum months to look for NLCs, but they may not always be present.

Indeed, if you get to hear about, or better still, see a good display, it certainly doesn’t mean there will be another the following night.

NLCs are beautiful to see visually and often bright enough to be photographed using nothing more than a modern smartphone camera.

Venus and Mercury

Venus and Mercury are visible in the evening twilight after sunset during June, Mercury having a particularly good appearance up until 20 June.

It reaches greatest eastern elongation on 15 June when it appears separated from the Sun by 24.5°.

On the evening of 16 June look out for mag. +0.7 Mercury 1.6° south of a 4%-lit waxing crescent Moon.

The following evening on 17 June, the now 10%-lit waxing crescent Moon sits 0.7° south of mag. -3.9 Venus. This should be quite a spectacular sight.

Full Moon – micromoon

Full Moons at this time of year are still being affected by a recent major lunar standstill, an effect which makes them particularly low in the middle of the year.

From the centre of the UK, the full Moon on the night of 29/30 June will barely scrape 9° altitude when due south.

This full Moon occurs shortly after lunar apogee when furthest from Earth. This makes the end of month full Moon a 'micromoon'; it's smaller and dimmer than an average full Moon.

Summer Triangle

Stargazing is tricky in June because of the brightness of the night sky, but losing some of the fainter stars does make the patterns formed by the brighter stars a little easier to make out

One of the most prominent patterns on view is the Summer Triangle.

Formed from three bright stars, Vega (Alpha (α) Lyrae), Deneb (Alpha (α) Cygni) and Altair (Alpha (α) Aquliae), this huge pattern has a strong presence in the summer sky, and is visible right into December.

Planets

Read our month-by-month guide to visible planets for the whole year

• Mercury: visible in Gemini in the northwest, best seen 7 June
from 40 minutes after sunset
• Venus: visible in Gemini in the west, best seen with Jupiter on 9 June, from 30 minutes after sunset
• Mars: visible in Aries in the east-northeast, best seen 30 June, 1 hour before sunrise
• Jupiter: visible in Gemini in the west-northwest, best seen with Venus on 9 June, from 30 minutes after sunset
• Saturn: visible in Pisces in the east-southeast, best seen 30 June
• Uranus: not visible this month
• Neptune: not visible this month

Night sky in June 2026, night-by-night

All month

Keep a lookout for beautiful noctilucent cloud displays (NLCs).

Friday 5 June

Now might be one of your best opportunities observe globular clusters in Ophiuchus, to avoid the Moon and the bright skies around the solstice.

Tuesday 9 June

Venus and Jupiter are in conjunction, separated by just 1.6° as they hang above the west-northwest horizon after sunset. Mercury is there too, closer in position to the Sun.

Friday 12 June

Early risers who catch a telescopic view of the 13%-lit waning crescent Moon will be treated to a good libration for Mare Orientale.

Saturday 13 June

If you’re up to look for morning NLCs, don’t forget to wait for the 6%-lit waning crescent Moon to rise, with mag. +1.3 Mars 6.8° to the southwest (below and right, as seen from the UK). 

Monday 15 June

Minor planet 14 Irene reaches opposition today.

Mercury reaches greatest eastern elongation, an impressive 24.5° from the Sun.

Tuesday 16 June

A lovely meeting occurs between a slender 4%-lit waxing crescent Moon and mag. +0.7 Mercury this evening. Venus and Jupiter are helpfully on hand to show the way.

Wednesday 17 June

As darkness falls, look out for the very beautiful sight of a 10%-lit lunar crescent. The Moon’s centre is just 0.7° south of mag. –3.9 Venus.

Friday 19 June

If you can locate the 26%-lit waxing crescent Moon under daylight conditions at 14:45 BST (13:45 UT), a small telescope should reveal the mag. +1.3 star Regulus, just 1.5x Moon diameters to the northeast (follow the line between the crescent’s cusps north) of the Moon’s centre.

Sunday 21 June

At 08:25 UT, the apparent northward movement of the Sun against the background stars comes to a halt as we reach the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice and the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.

Tuesday 23 June

The Plato’s Hook clair-obscur effect is visible on the floor of lunar crater Plato around 19:15 BST (18:15 UT). As the Sun will still be up, find the 69%-lit waxing Moon 20° above the southern horizon. 

Wednesday 24 June

Libration currently favours the Moon’s northern region, near the pole. 

The Jewelled Handle lunar clair-obscur effect is visible on the Moon.

Thursday 25 June

As they head back into the Sun’s glare, mag. –1.7 Jupiter and +1.6 Mercury put on a final show, 3.7° apart this evening. Mercury will be tricky in the bright June twilight, west (below and right) of Jupiter. 

Friday 26 June

Comet 10P/Tempel is currently passing just to the north of the mag. +10.0 globular cluster M72 in Aquarius. Lying 1.3° east of M72 is M73, one of several disputed Messier objects and actually an asterism of four stars.

Saturday 27 June

Catch the low 96%-lit waxing gibbous Moon just after darkness falls and look to its right: you should see the beautiful orange hue of the red supergiant star Antares (Alpha (α) Scorpii).

Sunday 28 June

Mag. +1.3 Mars is currently located 4.5° south of the Pleiades open cluster. Bright dawn twilight may make this hard to spot. Mars rises above the northeast horizon just after 02:30 BST (01:30 UT). 

Monday 29 June

As full Moons go, today’s will be one of the most underwhelming of the year! Occurring a day after lunar apogee, making it a micro-Moon, it’s also very low in the sky. 

FAQs

What time is best for stargazing tonight?

It might sound obvious, but the best time for stargazing is when it's properly dark! That means when the Sun has truly set and the sky is at its darkest.

Having said that, not all objects visible in the sky tonight will be visible for the whole night. You might want to observe a planet that sets shortly after the Sun. Or you might be looking for the Moon before it has risen.

A good stargazing app will help you decide what you want to observe in the night sky tonight, where and when to look.

Do I need a telescope?

You don't need a telescope to get a good view of the night sky, and this is especially the case for beginners. If you have a clear night and a dark sky free from light pollution, there's a lot you can see.

Bright stars and constellations, bright planets, meteor showers and even distant star clusters can be seen with the naked eye.

Binoculars will get you a closer look at these objects, and you'd be surprised at what even a modest pair can do for your view of the night sky.

A telescope, however, takes things to the next level, giving you amazing detail on the surface of the Solar System planets and the Moon, and revealing objects that would be invisible to the naked eye.

What if it's cloudy tonight?

Keep an eye on the weather forecast; it may be due to clear later on in the evening. If you really are facing a night of clouds, however, there's not much you can do.

You could stay indoors instead and plan for future stargazing sessions. Take a look at the weather forecast for the coming week. Work out when you've got the best chance of having a clear sky and plan what you might want to observe in advance.

That way, when a clear night rolls around, you'll have a plan of action and will be able to get your stargazing underway much more quickly.

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