The Moon will start the month with a waning sliver of a crescent and will be New on the 3rd. It'll be at first quarter on the 10th rising an hour after noon and setting at 1am. It will be Full on the 18th rising at 10.15pm and setting at 3.30am. Last quarter will be on the 26th rising half an hour after midnight and setting at 1.30pm the next day.
Not a good month for Deep Sky folk as only the first week is without the Moon, the rest belongs to the Lunarphiles, as it's in the sky for most of the month at some time or other, though towards the end of the month it's quite low in the south, but that's where all the newly rising nebulae are that are only visible at this time of the year!
Planets. Mars is very small and getting low too, setting at the start of the month by 1am, so make the most of its little 5arc" disc. It will be the bright 1.5Mag "star" half way between the Twins, Castor and Pollux, and Regulus, at the front feet of Leo, in the west.
At least that's its location on the 1st, but during the month it races towards Saturn and Regulus, and is well worth watching as it makes a progressively better and better photographic grouping with them, till on the 30th, coming to within 5° of Saturn and 1° of Regulus.
A fine swansong for them both, as Saturn too will be out of our skies for some time.
Saturn is always worth a look but needs a telescope or good binoculars to see the rings. With a good telescope you may also see some of its brighter moons, up to 7 can be seen in good skies.
Saturn sets an hour after Mars on the 1st and by the end of the month both of them will be down by midnight within minutes of each other.
When Saturn returns in October as a morning object it'll present a very thin view of its ring system. Mars won't be with us again till March next year, and will be smaller still. It's almost keeping pace with Earth on its circuit round the Sun, but on the far side.
In the mornings we have Venus rising a few minutes before the Sun but she'll be too close to look for, so don't try it.
Jupiter, will be rising at midnight on the 1st and by 10.15pm on the 30th. It's big at 47arc" and bright at -2.7Mag, so will be unmistakable, but will get no higher than 15deg above the horizon and it'll be difficult to see detail on the disc through the thick air at that altitude, tough the dancing of the Galilean moons will be easily seen with good binoculars.
Throughout the month, rising an hour and a half after Jupiter, at about 1.30am on the 1st, will be tiny Neptune, but only visible with a telescope where it'll present a little blue disc. Following an hour behind Neptune, at 2.30am, is Uranus, a slightly larger blue disc but still not large enough to be seen without a telescope, though it might be if we didn't have light pollution to contend with. Under good conditions and with a good telescope, both these planets present a distinctly blue disc, caused by the methane in their atmospheres.
No meteor showers of note in June, and no easily visible comets either.
What else. This month sees the continued rise of the summer constellations into the eastern sky, with the Summer Triangle of Vega (Lyra), Deneb (Cygnus) and Altair (Aquila), easy to pick out as the sky darkens. Hercules has already risen and its globular clusters M13 and M92 will be glorious sights in a telescope. They take magnification well in good skies, particularly M13 which will allow you deep into the centre of it's half million stars. Just south of Hercules is Ophiuchus with 3 more globulars. But June is the time to seek out the nebulae and Open Clusters in Sagittarius where the centre of the galaxy lies, and there are many, though the Moon will try to make it difficult. But perseverance will be rewarded.
In addition to stars and planets you'll be able to see many of the several thousand man made satellites soon after dark as they reflect the Sun's light down to us. They don't flash as 'planes do. See Chris Peat's website http://www.heavens-above.com/ for details.
For instance, very bright Iridium Flares can be seen as follows:
on the 3rd, at 22.50.55 Hrs, 24° above the horizon, at compass point 283° (WNW)
on the 5th, at 22.48.11 Hrs, 21° above the horizon, at compass point 288° (WNW)
on the 5th, at 23.55.45 Hrs, 48° above the horizon, at compass point 242° (SW)
on the 6th, at 22.28.05 Hrs, 11° above the horizon, at compass point 346° (NNW)
on the 8th, at 23.39.25 Hrs, 46° above the horizon, at compass point 248° (SW)
Yes, those are the exact times so be looking in that direction then or you'll miss them.
The International Space station can be seen passing over the Doncaster area from time to time, for instance,
on the 1st, visible from 22.31.36 Hrs in the west, moving south westwards towards the south east.
on the 3rd, visible from 21.40.56 Hrs in the west, moving in the same direction as the one above.
The ISS will appear to be a bright "star" taking about 5 minutes to cross the sky, whereas Iridium Flares are small satellites that tumble and not easily seen till the tumbling brings their solar panels to a position that gives us the characteristic "flare", for moments only.
I can draw up star charts if needed for particular items, just give me a call.
Regards, Brian