Moon
Last Quarter -- 4th up from 00:00 to 13:41
New -- 12th up from 04:12 to 21:16
First Quarter -- 19th up from 14:22 to 23:38
Full -- 26th up from 21:06 to 05:38
The Sun barely gets below the northern horizon during high summer, so twilight doesn’t really end. You can watch it as it passes from west through north to east through the night.
This is the season to delve into the southern reaches of the sky, towards the centre of the galaxy, where many of the Messier objects reside. A beautiful area if we could only see it all year. A slight benefit is that the sky is darkest in the south.
This is also the season for those Noctilucent Clouds in the northern skies soon after Sunset, certainly worth the effort with a DSLR or a P&S camera, so do it, and send pictures for the blog.
Not easy to keep an eye on the north and the south, but those with widely set eyes may hold an advantage.
Planets
Saturn will be gone by midnight on the 1st, but is bright enough to be seen while it’s still quite light, so seize this, your last chance; by the end of the month it’ll set by 10:30pm.
Mars continues to shrink; it’ll set at midnight on the 1st, and at 10:30pm on the 31st, with Saturn a degree and a half away. They’ll be within a couple of degrees of each other for about 4 nights, so may be worth catching with a camera.
Venus continues to shine like a searchlight in the west at mag –4, setting on the 1st at 11:30pm and on the 31st at 10:15pm. But it’s also moving backwards and approaching Mars and Saturn, and at the end of July it’ll be within 8° of Mars. Another photo opportunity. Venus’s phase will also change from 70% at the start of July to 58% at the end.
Mercury will be too close to the Sun till about the 7th when it’ll set 30mins after it, but very low in very bright twilight, so not easy to find, though it’ll be mag –1. It’ll be visible, though difficult, all the rest of the month, setting about the same time after the Sun, but drawing further away from it, so safer to observe. It continues to move retrograde, approaching to within 18° of Venus by the 31st.
On the other side of the sky, tiny blue Neptune rises at 9:45pm, in twilight of course, so will be difficult to see at mag 7.8 and 2arcsec. But will be there for the rest of the night in Capricornus.
On the 1st of July, Uranus, equally blue, will rise about 12:45am, and at mag 5.8, theoretically naked eye, but it will be difficult being so low. The Moon will also spoil things both ends of the month.
Rising 2° from Uranus will be bright yellow Jupiter’s mag –2.6 and 42arcsec disc. Too low yet for detail to be seen, but things will improve as it rises, and will continue to improve through the following months.
Meteors. None worth lying on your back outside to watch for, though that’s worth doing in summer if the sky is clear anyway.
Comets. Comet C/2009 R1 McNaught, was circum-polar in June but is out of contention now, July.
Out in the east, Comet 10P/Tempel starts the month the 1st of June, within 7° of Uranus and Jupiter as they rise together about 1:00am. It continues to keep pace with them but falls back to 15° below them by the 31st. It can be seen below the planets at mag 8-ish. It will need binoculars to be seen at least but a camera would be a better prospect.
Not much else to be seen even with binoculars. Their visibility is reported in magnitude, and this is all very well for stars, but these will be fuzzy, so the mag number will be spread over a large area of sky so they will be much more difficult to see than a star of the same magnitude. And there are no comets brighter than mag 7 or so.
Satellites
ISS
2nd at 21:28 Hrs from W up to 60° high in S - Mag –3.6
2nd at 23:03 Hrs from W up to 31° high in SSW - mag –2.7
3rd at 21:54 Hrs from W up to 47° high in SSW – mag –3.3
4th at 22:21 Hrs from W up to 29° high in SSW – mag –2.6
Iridium Flares
1st at 23:46:54 -- 57° up in the SSW at mag –9. V Bright
1st at 23:48:49 – 57° up in the SSW at mag –1
2nd at 03:01:52 – 38° up in the E at mag –3
3rd at 02:55:45 – 38° up in the E at mag -5
3rd at 22:10:12 – 38° up in the W at mag 0
5th at 22:07:19 – 33° up in the SSE at mag –7
More details of satellites can be obtained from www.heavens-above.com
Similarly sky charts can be had by contacting the observatory at www.donastro.org.uk
Brian