What's in the night sky in the week of 26 June to 2 July, 2023 in our weekly stargazing guide. Mars and Venus make their closest approach of the year in this week’s stargazing highlights.
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. As we're based here in the UK, all times are in BST. In this episode, we'll be covering the coming week from the 26th of June to 2nd July. I'm Ezzy Pearson and I'm joined this week by Paul Money. Hello, Paul.
Paul Money Hello, Ezzy.
Ezzy So Paul, tell us what we've got coming up in the next week.
Paul Well, we've been following the antics of Venus and Mars for quite a while. And it does seem a long time, doesn't it. Literally has been months and months and months. But the current session is now beginning to get towards the end. And especially over the next month into July, we see Venus begin to drop away down towards the horizon quite quickly. So we start off then with our famous duo of Venus and Mars. They're performing an astronomical ballet aren't they. They seem to be trying to catch up with each other. But Venus is not making it. It can't quite catch Mars. And in this apparition it doesn't. It won't catch up in Mars at all. Look over around about 10:30 in the evening. Venus is the one you spot straightaway. It's the brilliant star very low down in the west northwest. So you can't miss that sort of thing around about 10:30 onwards. The skies are light. We're just past the summer solstice, of course. So this is the time when a lot of deep sky observers basically they just stopped. Although actually there is some it's surprising what you can do. And nowadays with narrowband imaging, you know, it's amazing what you can capture still. So perhaps we're going to see the end of that but visual observing, there aren't many objects. I always like double stars and things like that. And and, and the globular clusters and the open clusters aren't too bad. But anything nebulous, or diffuse or small, like galaxies, they're the ones that struggle a little bit. But we're staying with the planets. Because we're looking off we still got these two planets Venus and Mars. Mars to the left of Venus slightly above it, and but they are going to drop down over the coming week, they're going to get lower and lower in the evening sky as they start to drop into the solar glare. But we will keep them for a while. But you know, their period of observing is now drawing to a close in the evening sky. Now, at the moment, Regulus which is the brightest star of Leo the Lion, it's to their left. So over the course of the week, they will actually gradually get closer to Regulus itself. So on 2nd, when we get to the end of them, on 2 July, it's almost like Mars is forming the apex of a nice, even triangle is just slightly off. We'll have to wait till the following week for them to be in lineup. So they're the evening planets to keep looking out for. And they have been entertaining us for quite a while, haven't they? So you know, we've we've got our money's worth out of them, as you might say.
Ezzy Absolutely.
Paul Now when we move on to the next night, we got so like what we started in 26 on 20 sevens. We can't ignore the Moon, I mean, the moon, the moon is the one thing that is always easily observable by everybody. You don't have to confuse it with anything. At least Venus, you can confuse it with a very bright side. Although I'd say Venus is really bright. But the Moon you can't mistake it. And on 26th and 27th. It's in the southwest. And it actually lies on the 26th next to the double star Porrima. And these are regular events because Porrima is quite close to the current movement of the moon in its orbit, in its current Cyrus at the moment, then it cycle means that we constantly see it going past Porrima I remember times when sort of the Moon was going really close to the Pleiades and then we lose that for a few years and then gradually creeps back up again. And we're having that with Porrima and Spica, or Spicer depending on how you want to pronounce it. So on the 26th it's to the lower left of Porrima and is below it. So you know it's an interesting contrast because the path of the moon then takes it above Spica. So actually on 27th it's directly above that star, which is of course the brightest star of Virgo itself. Again, you want to be looking towards the southwest alright about 10:30 but the skies will be light, but you'll not there to mistake the moon. if you miss the moon. It must it must be cloudy or quite low mist because that's it One of the problems we sometimes get, especially where I am on the east coast, we get a lot of sort of like clouds drift in. It may have a glorious day, we've had some glorious... But then the cloud drifts in from the North Sea, and the rest of the country has wonderful views of the sky. And I'm there jumping up and down in my back garden with the cloud over me, going no, not again!
Ezzy It is unfortunately, sometimes it can be very localised exactly where the good weather is. But that's sometimes where you just have to get out there and try and observe somewhere different for a while.
Paul Yes, if you can travel, it helps don't it.
Ezzy Because we quite often talk about sometimes the moon is closer when it's full, or it's further away when it's full. That's when people talk about supermoons, that's when you know, the moon is full when it's in a slightly close a bit of its orbit. But people don't I don't tend to think too much about the fact that it does... its inclination changes as well. It's like his position on the night sky actually sort of drifts up and down as well. So I think that one's a fascinating one to watch, possibly over slightly longer timescales.
Paul Yes, it's a really long term project. I've been doing this long enough now to, to have seen it change quite a lot. We won't go any further into that. They're back to Venus and Mars, you might think, Oh, hang on, we've Haven't we had enough of Venus and Mars. Well, I make them closest on 30th June, looking at about 11 o'clock at night when it's a bit darker, so Mars is a bit easy to see, but do it before they set. And the separation between Venus and Mars as is closest for this particular operation is about three degrees and 33 arc minutes. And after that, it starts to get bigger again, the gap between the two planets. So this is their closest approach. It's not a conjunction in the normal sense. If we were really strict, a lot of conjunctions people described as conjunctions don't happen. Yeah. Because a true conjunction should be really in right ascension. We also use declination, but we tend to sort of tend to use also when they close to each other.
Ezzy Yes. So I think the strict definition of a conjunction is when two planets or bodies have the same right ascension as each other, and are close in declination as well. I'm not entirely sure what the sort of limit on the declination is. I think that one's a bit more wafty. It's just like, close. Yesterday, it's the right ascension is the one that sort of to be officially a conjunction that needs to be the same.
Paul But it makes no difference to us amateur astronomers. We seem to just use it willy nilly, and just say, "Oh, they're in close conjunction tonight."
Ezzy Yeah, it has sort of come to be but the sort of more colloquial term is just these two objects have made their closest approach. And it's closest... it's close enough that it's deemed significant. But still, it's still you know, they're still pretty close to each other. What was it 3.6 degrees? Did you say? Yeah,
Paul Yeah. So yeah, I mean, that's quite a few Moons, you could get between there sort of thing. I would make it sort of like 12 to 13 moons or that could be unlucky, couldn't it. We're not superstitious, are we Ezzy? So there we are, it's quite close. And then after this, Venus is beginning to drop lower and the separation increases again after that, although of course, they're slowly both will begin to drop back into the solar twilight, the solar glare. So as I say, we are coming to the end of them. Now on the 30th. That same night, we look towards the south and the moon, where it's going to be a few days yet. In fact, it's next week when it's actually full, but he's getting thicker in the phase. And so we look towards the south, and there's the moon, but it's in Scorpius. I've got my horizon to the south, it's not particularly good, got a lot of bushes and shrubs in the neighbour's garden. But last night, I was just able to see Antares. So it means that when this comes round, I should just about see, the Moon in Scorpius is to the upper right of Antares. And I did actually manage to photograph them in early June when they were within about a degree of each other. So I was quite pleased, although you have to do two different pictures because the Moon is so bright compared with Antares, you have to do a composite. So they also the last night of June sort of thing is when the Moon is in Scorpius and it'll be to the right of Antares. And then the next evening 1 July, the Moon will be to the left of Antares. Be interested to see whether people notice use binoculars and see whether you notice the colour of Antares it's a nice ruddy orange colour sort of thing, but he does and it will it will twinkle up because it's quite low. It doesn't get very high for us, unfortunately, in the UK, and so is a bit of a problem star in that respect. It's a bit like the the Messier objects, M6 and M7 in Scorpius. You can see them from my latitude but then there are only a degree or so, a half, above the horizon. So of course you have then the horizon haze sort of thing that can mute the appearance, but at least Antares and the Moon will be a bit higher now. And you can you always use the Moon to find Antares, exactly. If you can't miss them if you miss the Moon. So you've got you've got problems. So you know, so there we are.
Ezzy Because you did mention that that you can make composite pictures of the Moon even though the Moon is usually too bright that if you're photographing the Moon, everything else will be too dim, and vice versa, the Moon will be blown out if you're focusing on everything else. But there are lots of ways that you can compensate for that and get around it. If you are aiming to do some astrophotography when the full Moon is up, we have lots of guides for that over on our website. I will put a link down for that in the show notes as well if anybody is interested in learning more about how to go about doing that.
Paul Well let's round off this week with the morning sky. We spend a lot of time in the evening sky, haven't we? But yes, we mustn't forget, we've actually got all four giant planets in the morning sky. Starting with Saturn, we're looking at about 3am at the moment. It will be quite light and after that it gets even lighter, so 2 to 3 o'clock in the morning. But I say 3am because by then Uranus is up Uranus is the one closest to this, the twilight, so it's only just emerging out of the solar glare. So we've got Saturn in the southeast and Neptune in roughly the south or south east. And then you've got Jupiter now obviously Neptune you'll need binoculars or a small telescope because you won't see that with the naked eye but Saturn and Jupiter will definitely be naked eye planets to observe. And then you've got Uranus, as I say, emerging out of the solar glar. Jupiter and Uranus are east to east northeast, so right about 3am but if you leave it later than that the sky will be quite light. And this time of year sort of thing they are quite light nights anyway, no matter what you do. But it's worth picking out and you've got I just find it interesting we've got these parade of for the four giant planets are all visible in the morning sky at the moment. So there we are, we could end the week with the giant planets.
Ezzy They might be a bit trickier to spot than Venus and Mars which are almost... very bright in the night sky comparative to some of these. But Jupiter's quite bright and Saturn, I think at the same time is also reasonably bright. So it's Neptune and Uranus which might be a bit more of a challenge.
Paul And of course with Jupiter and Uranus, they're quite low down at the moment. I have the handicap of this shrub filled bank to hide it from the industrialist estate, which unfortunately, stops me seeing the planets until they get roughly towards the south. Unless they're very high up the ecliptic. Well, of course the ecliptic is quite low at the moment sort of thing. We've got Sagittarius in the south. So it's the lowest point of the ecliptic. But it means at the moment for me, I haven't yet seen Saturn or Neptune or even Jupiter emerge sort of thing. So you know, it's, it's a struggle for me. But you do need an uncluttered horizon and it's well worth it. if again, if you've got a chance on the day off the next day, you're not working, pop off final little observing site, if you want to see the mini parade of the planets, isn't it
Ezzy Just a mini one.
Paul Hey, if you think about if you start off in the evening, you've got Mars and Venus. And then early morning just before it turns too bright, you've got four more planets. You've got six of the planets and seven if you count the earth. Mustn't forget the earth. If you can't see the Earth, worry.
Ezzy I think it's just Mercury that's hiding at the moment.
Paul It is, but not for long.
Ezzy Not for long. But thank you very much for taking us through this week's highlights, Paul, my pleasure. So to summarise those again on 26th to 27th of July, the moon will be moving across the sky, passing below Porrima and then above Spica, and that's probably best viewed at around 10:30pm. On 30 June, Mars and Venus are going to make their closest approach of the year. 3.6 degrees apart from each other they'll get. After this point, Venus and Mars will begin dropping out of the sky, so it's a good opportunity to catch those before they start disappearing. On 30 June and 1 July the moon is going to be close to Antares in the upper right of Scorpius and throughout the week, you can catch all four of the giant planets in the morning sky. Uranus will rise from about 3am, so if you want to catch all four of them, and that is when you'll need to start looking. So thank you very much from all of us for listening.
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.
