What's Up in the Night Sky

June 2015 - Vol. 19, No. 6

This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

Spica (Virgo) glows in the SW while Regulus (Leo) vanishes over the W horizon before midnight. The "big dipper" (Ursa Major's asterism) now stands on its "handle" in the N. Antares (Scorpius) is low on the S horizon. The Eastern sky is dominated by the "summer triangle" asterism: Deneb (Cygnus), Vega (Lyra) and Altair (Aquila). An interesting star tour begins at the last star of the big dipper's handle, Alkaid. Following the curve of the handle, "arc to Arcturus". Now, following the same curve, "spike to Spica" and "continue to Corvus", its distinctive four star, kite-shaped, asterism.

MERCURY will be in the morning sky, after the 9th of June. VENUS rides high in the evening sky. JUPITER moves into the constellation of Leo, setting around midnight. VENUS and JUPITER will meet in the sky at the end of the month. This will be a fabulous sight, watch this month as these two bright planets approach each other in the evening sky. MARS is lost in the Sun and will reappear in the morning sky in August. SATURN is visible most of the night and moves in retrograde motion through Libra. URANUS rises in morning sky later this month.

Review how to determine Angular Measurement.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time. Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or cable TV's Weather Channel for sunrise and sunset times. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

DATE	EVENT
01	Saturn 1.9 deg S. of Moon.
06	Venus greatest elongation E. High and bright in the N. hemisphere, our sister planet shines over -4 magnitude!
10	Moon at perigee.
11	Uranus 0.5 deg N. of Moon, occultation from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa
14	Mars in conjunction with the Sun.
15	Aldebaran, Alpha Tauri occultation by the Moon for parts of Canada and Russia, Scandinavia, Iceland and Greenland. Mercury .04 deg N. of Moon,occultation from S. India, Sri Lanka. SE Asia, Micronesia.
20	Venus 6 deg N. of Moon.
21	Summer Solstice, a very long day in the N. Hemisphere. Jupiter 5 deg N. of Moon.
23	Moon at apogee.
24	Mercury greatest elongation W.
29	Saturn 2 deg S. of Moon.
30	Venus and Jupiter, conjunction within 0.3 degrees.

Lunar Almanac for June 2015

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 16	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 24	Planets & Moon
	Full 02	Moon
	Last Qtr 09	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: The Summer Triangle, Lyra

The Summer Triangle is an asterism, a group of stars that are not a constellation, but have earned a popular nickname. It is formed of three bright stars that dominate the summer sky, Vega, Deneb, and Altair. Each star is the brightest member of its constellation, they are Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila respectively. This year, What's Up in Night Sky will pay tribute to the three constellations that are part of the Summer Triangle. This month features Lyra, home of the well known bright star, Vega.
lyra
The constellation Lyra is small, but prominent in the Summer Sky. The blue giant star Vega is located in the northern sky, and was at one time a pole star about 14,000 years ago and will be again someday. Vega was one of the first stars to be photographed and early infrared studies showed that it was surrounded by a disk of dust. It far outshines the Beta and Gamma stars of the constellation, Epsilon Lyrae is a fine double star, easily resolved in small instruments. It is sometime called the Double double, because each of the bright components is a double star itself.

Lyra is also home to a fabulous deep sky object, a planetary nebula that is commonly known as the Ring Nebula. In a good telescope it will look like a smoke ring, but it is 3100 light years away. It takes a larger amateur instrument to see the central star that is best revealed in a photograph. There are also two meteor showers that seem to originate in the constellation of Lyra, one in the month of April that lasts for about a week from April 16 - 21 with the peak on the 20th or the 21st. At this time up to 20 meteors may seem to emanate from the direction of Lyra. The Lyrid shower will be best observed after midnight, when the constellation will be rising from the horizon. By the time the Sun rises, the constellation will be overhead and this will be the best time to see the shower unless the moon interfers. In June, the Lyrid shower peaks around the 15th or the 16th with a mere 10 meteors per hour generally reported. To avoid confusing meteors that occur at random on normal nights, be sure that the meteors you are counting actually originate from the area of the sky where the constellation of Lyra resides. This area of the sky is refered to as the "radiant" of the meteor shower that gives the shower its name.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac

The star chart above was generated by Stellarium, a free open source planetarium program. This image was created by Dawn Jenkins, using Stellarium and a graphic editing program to format the image for this web page. Stellarium offers much to amateur astronomers and is being used in planetariums. Simple charts like the one above can be used on the internet for non-profit, illustration purposes. Proper credit is due of course! Thank you to the makers of this fine program from Astra's Star Gate.