What's in the night sky in the week of 19 to 25 June, 2023 in our weekly stargazing guide. As the summer solstice approaches, take a look at Venus and Mars in this week’s stargazing guide
Chris Bramley Hello and welcome to Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine. You can subscribe to the print edition of the magazine by visiting www.skyatnightmagazine.com or digital edition by visiting on iTunes or Google Play.
Ezzy Pearson Greetings, listeners, and welcome to Star Diary, A weekly guide to the best things to see in the northern hemisphere's night sky. In this episode, we'll be covering the coming week from 19 to 25 June. I'm Ezzy Pearson, the magazine's features editor, and I'm joined on the podcast today by reviews editor Paul Money. Hello, Paul.
Paul Money Hello there Ezzy. I'm hoping that we get some nice clear skies, even though they are light skies at the moment as we head towards the summer solstice.
Ezzy But that doesn't necessarily mean that won't be anything worth looking up for. So what are your recommendations for the coming week?
Paul Well, we'll kick off with the evening sky because that's the most observable time of the sky, if you ask me. Around about 10:30 sky will be light. But if you look towards the northwest, we have a very, very, very slim crescent moon. It's not the slimmest it can possibly be, but there's still a something about them. You know, this really thin crescent hanging there in the twilight sky, and you've got Castor and Pollux actually forming a triangle. The moon is the peak, the apex of that triangle, with Castor and Pollux in Gemini. So they should be visible as well as the sky darkens, as they begin to set. But it's a lovely view. You will have a Earthshine as well, although when it's so low and so slim that the twilight may overwhelm the actual Earthshine itself. But in the meantime, of course, if you look over to the left, towards the west northwest, Guess what we find? Yes! The dynamic duo still up, and that is Venus and Mars. Now, as we head into the summer solstice, which happens on 21st at 3:58 in the afternoon this year, the sun will be at its most northerly position in the sky. And in the evening sky we find the crescent moon actually lie to the upper right of Venus. And then the next evening to the upper left of Mars. And that's 21st and 22nd. So even on the summer solstice, there's something to see in the evening sky. And again this time you should see some earthshine with the actual moon as it passes Venus and Mars. And it's surprising. It's one of those things that because you can't really see the faint background stars, you don't realise how much Venus and Mars have moved into their own background positions against the background stars, which is a shame, but it's around about one and a half moon widths. So, you know, you're looking at a distance of a degree... a degree and a half, sort of thing, actual motion of those planets. But because we haven't got the reference stars behind to actually easily show that it's hard to appreciate just how much they're actually moving. Yet they are still slowly descending into the bright evening sky, but the will keep ahead of it for a while yet. So we haven't got rid of them yet, folks. They're still going to hang around doing their little dance and, as I say, Venus won't catch it with Mars. Mars is plain tag, and it's staying ahead. It's determined to keep ahead of the bright planet. Now, on 23rd, the interesting thing is they gradually heading towards the boundary between Cancer and Leo. And on 23rd, literally, Venus and Mars are either, side equal distance, either side of the boundary between the constellations. But the trouble is we can't see that, can we? We can't see the boundary. It would be very useful if you could see these boundaries I have to say, and the lines, but it's one of those things. But they will be creeping closer to Regulus in Leo and I mentioned this because on 23rd. We often tend to think of the spring constellation of Leo is lost once we get to the summer solstice. But in actual fact it does linger for a week or two before we finally lose it. And so the the thick of crescent moon over to the upper left of Regulus on the 23rd, and then there'll be Mars and Venus to the lower right, the other side of the star as well. So well worth keeping an eye out for that. And as I say there's not a great deal happening other than that in the night sky. But, it's worth now turning to morning sky because we now we've got Saturn and Neptune in the morning sky. They've been quite prominent because they rose quite early on. I'm looking at around 3AM, so the skies aren't quite light. You might be lucky. If you if you go out looking for these things, you never know. You might catch a display of Noctilucent Clouds as well. So you might get several things happening. But it's not just such a Neptune we've gotten Jupiter. Jupiter will be better placed now over in the east. But they are joined finally by Uranus. And Uranus is emerging out of the glare of the Sun. And so about 3:00AM, you should be able to look towards the east, slightly to the left of the east and you find Jupiter. And then Uranus is visible. So we've got the four giant planets back into the night sky as well. But the problem with Uranus and Neptune is that you've got the light sky, so you've got to bear that in mind. Binoculars and telescopes should actually show them. So we've got, all the four outer major planets now on display. And why feels like ages since we've seen Uranus. Months, literally months.
Ezzy It does seem to be, this year in general has been really great for the planets. Not necessarily always, you know, the best placed on the night sky or they're in the morning. But there has been a lot going on with them over the past couple of months, which is always good to see. I always love a good planet.
Paul And, you know, now we've got Jupiter back. We can keep an eye on the Great Red Spot because quite a few astrophotographers have pointed out that it is actually shrinking. You know, NASA's agreed that it does seem to have shrunk a little bit. So I hope we're not in the phase of losing it in the next few years, perhaps few decades. But, you know, it's one of those things. It's been part of our lives ever since I started astronomy sort of thing and for hundreds of years. So, you know, but you never know. It could have a revival. It may be just having a fading. The interesting thing is we can't see it in the sky at the moment, but the news is that Betelgeuse is doing something erratic again and it's gone brighter than it should do, and it's in the blooming summer sky so we can't see it.
Ezzy Oh no, isn't that difficult? Yeah, always happens. Something interesting when we can't see it. So, Orion is probably up in the southern hemisphere's night sky right now.
Paul They getting it, low in the evening sky for them. But of course, for us it's too bright, because it's in the summer sky for us, however, you know it won't be... Give it another month, a month and a half, and it will creep back into the morning sky for us as well. So I can't wait to see it. I want to see what's going on, you know. Because we have the great dimming two years ago, three years ago, near enough now. And so that was quite something that was quite dramatic sort of thing. But, you know, this this is it got brighter again, this one's brighter than normal. So, you know, the question is why. We know it's a red supergiant so we know it should be coming towards the end of its life. But usually we talk about, you know, probably tens of thousands of years at least before it goes bang. So, will it go bang, we don't know. But wouldn't it be amazing if we suddenly woke up to another star in the sky, bright sun in the sky and the think, hang on there's two? Almost like Tatooine in Star Wars, when you see two stars, two suns in the sky. Because it would be bright. It be bright enough to be seen in daylight. I don't.
Ezzy Think it would be quite as bright as the Sun. That would be slightly worrying.
Paul It would be worrying, yes. I would say running for the hills, but it wouldn't do as much good, would it?
Ezzy Definitely be visible, but I think it is... current theories are still it's not about to go supernova imminently. But you know, this is astronomy and space science. So we're talking, you know, +/- a million years or so is not an uncommon sentence to hear.
Paul I love saying that when I do my public star and I saw them point out Betelgeuse, and say "by the way, it could go bang, but it could it could be light tomorrow, but it could be up to a million years." And people... Hanging on a... million years? So. Yeah, but it could go tomorrow.
Ezzy Yeah, I think current thinking is 10,000 years is about what they're looking at. But as it gets closer to the end of its life, it is going to start doing more stuff.
Paul Odd things. Being erratic..
Ezzy Yes. And it had a big... They think it was a big dust release that happened back in– oh, when was that?
Paul 2020.
Ezzy 2020.
Paul late 2019, early 2020. Just locked down occurred. yeah. So I've got photographs showing it and dramatically different to what it used to be. Quite something.
Ezzy You know, maybe it's something related to that, maybe it's some other thing. But you know, it's Beetlejuice is going to be very in quite a lot of a well, who knows how lot. So that's going to definitely be one to keep an eye on. But thank you, Paul, for taking us through this week's highlights. To summarise those again, on 19 June and the evening sky, Castor and Pollux are going to form a triangle with the crescent moon. Venus and Mars continue to move across the sky together. On 21st, it's also the summer solstice. On 21st and 22nd. The crescent moon appears to the upper right of Venus. And look in the evening twilight for the moon, Mars and Venus as they almost line up together with Regulus... not quite, but almost. And then finally, on 25th in the morning sky, Uranus is just beginning to emerge from the solar glare, meaning that you can catch a glimpse of all four giant planets in the morning sky. So thank you very much for taking us through all of that, Paul. And if you at home want to keep up to date with all of the best things to see in the night sky every week, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and we hope to see you here next week.
And if you want to keep up to date with the best things to see in the night sky every week, do be sure to subscribe to the podcast and we hope to see you here next week if you want to find out even more spectacular sites that will be gracing the night sky this month, be sure to pick up a copy of BBC Sky at Night magazine, where we have a six page pull out sky guide with a full overview of everything worth looking up for throughout the whole month. Whether you like to look at the moon, the planets, or the deep sky, whether you use binoculars, telescopes or neither, our sky Guide has got you covered with detailed star charts to help you track your way across the night sky. From all of us here at BBC Sky Night Magazine, goodbye.
Chris Bramley Thank you for listening to this episode of Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night magazine. For more of our podcasts, visit our website at www.skyatnightmagazine.com or head to aCast, iTunes or Spotify.
