In the Sky - June 2026

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:21]What's going on, Stella crew? Bob MacArthur here for the June 2026 edition of In the Sky. Here we are. It is summer. It is June. The summer solstice is June 21st, the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere, but the first day of winter in the southern hemisphere. But just because the days are longer, the nights are short, doesn't mean you can't get out and do some astronomy. You can look at Venus during the daytime. That's really fun to do. But you can also look at the sun as long as you have the proper equipment.

[00:00:49]So right here, I have my SVX90T on a Sailor View M2C mount. Great little setup. I got my white light filter on there and that does such a great job giving us these beautiful views of the sun's photosphere. You can see the sunspots.

[00:01:09]Wow. It's It's awesome. So, this is a great setup. Always make sure you have that proper white light filter. Now, over here I have my SkyWatcher wave mount with the Helioar 76H Alpha scope.

[00:01:23]This gives you a very different view of the sun. It is blocking out all of the visible spectrum all the way down to that hydrogen alpha line on the on the red end of the spectrum. So when you look down through this telescope, wow, you get this unbelievable view of the sun's chromosphere. You get to see the prominences coming off the top. You get to see the granulation in the sun, the filaments.

[00:01:50]Just get to see that activity coming off of the sun. Uh I've been using this scope with my students doing um you know solar viewing and one student said Mac it looks like the sun has come alive. So both of these scopes are amazing for viewing the sun. Two very different views getting to see the the the photosphere with the sunspots, the chromosphere with all the the prominences and the granulation and the filaments. So, there's a lot of fun solar viewing you can do as long as you have the proper equipment like a white light filter or an Halfphoscope. So, you need a setup like this, contact us here at Stellar View. We can get you set up for an amazing solar viewing system here. If you want to do the Halpha viewing, contact Skyatcher. They are unbelievable. You can even call us up.

[00:02:42]We can get you pointed in the right direction for this scope. the HalfLoscope. It is unbelievable. So, yes, there is viewing you can do during the day. Like I said, you can see Venus and you can do some great solar viewing with the right equipment. But it is also Milky Way season. The summer Milky Way is starting to come up and I love it.

[00:03:02]You get to see all those beautiful nebula like the Tripid and the Lagoon and the Swan Nebulas. You get all those beautiful star clusters like M6 and M7.

[00:03:13]you go up there to M11, the wild duck cluster. It is so fun to view in the summertime. There's so much to view. So, let's get to it and talk about what we got going on in the sky.

[00:03:28]All right, stellar crew. Let's get to it and talk about what we got going on in the sky for June 2026. So, let's start it off right off the bat. June 7th, we have this nice grouping of the planets low on the western horizon after sunset.

[00:03:41]So check out Venus, Jupiter, Mercury.

[00:03:43]They're down there hanging out in Gemini with Castro and Pulock. So that'll make a nice grouping. Check that out. On June 9th, Jupiter and Venus are going to be super close to one another. You're going to need a nice view to the the west, but check that out. You'll get a great view of uh Jupiter and Venus. Really close about one and a half degrees. On June 12th, the waning crescent moon is hanging out with Mars in the early morning. So, uh Mars is starting to kind of make its debut in the morning sky.

[00:04:08]Not going to be crazy impressive. You'll get that little rusty orange disc. But check it out with the crescent moon on June 12th. On June 13th before sunrise, the waning crescent moon is going to move through the plates. Uh actually doing an occultation. So um that'll be a cool event to check out. On June 16th and the 17th, the waxing crescent moon dances from Mercury through Jupiter, then up to Venus. So check out that on the on the evenings after sunset on June 16th and 17th. On June 17th, also we have a daytime occultation of Venus.

[00:04:45]This is a really cool event. It's when Venus gets covered up by the moon. We'll talk about that when we get to the talking about the solar system stuff.

[00:04:52]So, there you go. On June 21st, we have the summer solstice, which is the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere, first day of winter in the southern hemisphere. We're going to talk about that a little bit later, too. So, there you go. Now, on June 23rd, Spya and the waxing gibbus moon are high in the southwestern sky. So, check out that waxing gibbus moon right there with Spya. On June 24th and 25th, look low on the western horizon after sunset for Jupiter and Mercury coming together for a nice little pairing. So, Jupiter's starting to descend. Mercury's making a great viewing. I Jupiter season's pretty much over at this point. You can still get Jupiter and see its moons, but um check out that on on the 24th and 25th when Mercury and Jupiter come together.

[00:05:36]And then on June 27th and 28th, the moon is going to dance from one side of Antares to the other side of Antar's as the sun sets. Look over in the eastern sky for Jupies and the almost full moon hanging out together.

[00:05:53]So let's talk about the solar system.

[00:05:55]Um, planets are kind of interesting right now. Um, you know, the moon's doing its thing. We got a few things going on. So, let's talk about it. You know, the new moon weekend is June 15th.

[00:06:05]So, that is your dark sky weekend. A lot of great star parties happening around that weekend. I know we have the Grand Canyon star party going on. Rocky Mountain Star Stairs going on. Um, the Dark Sky star party uh is going on. So, there's a lot of star parties. get out there, see what star parties are going on because I know we just had the Texas star party. Um, but that we are getting into star party season. So, check out, you know, maybe get in touch with your local astronomy club or, you know, see what's going on because there are a lot of star parties in the summer. So, but the full moon is June 29th. Not going to have any star parties that weekend because the moon is going to be big and bright. You know, that that that is the the time I actually like to look at my binary stars and things like that. But plan your observing sessions accordingly. Um, planets, comets, asteroids, check out the sky live. They always do a phenomenal job keeping us up to date on what comets are out, what bright comets are out, when they're up, uh, when they're visible, things like that. Same things with your your your asteroids. And, uh, yeah, check that out. Um, Sky Telescope astronomical tools. Uh, you could still get Jupiter, so don't Yeah, Jupiter's still there.

[00:07:13]Um, and that's such a great tool to find out what moon you're looking at or what moons of Jupiter you're looking at, their positions, and as they move through the night. Um, and then of course, Stellarium and Sky Safari are just great tools to find out where the planets are, where the deep sky objects are. I really do like those tools. So, right now after sunset, you're getting Mercury and Venus and Jupiter, right?

[00:07:36]Uh, in the morning sky, you're starting to see your, you know, Mars is coming up. Saturn, it's hard to do right now.

[00:07:43]Uh and then and then of course Uranus and Neptune are up there in the in the morning sky. So right now the really the the showcase planets are really right after sunset. With that said, check out the daytime occultation of Venus on June 17th. That's an image that I shot um a while back. But uh that it was a fun daytime event to watch. you had Venus and then you watched the moon cover up Venus and then um you know hour 45 minutes or so later boop you had that Venus pop out on the other side. So that was pretty cool event to watch but check out that website lunar occultations.com.

[00:08:20]Um, uh, it is a phenomenal website to help out when this event will happen in your city. Depending on what latitude you live at, how far north or how far south you live in North America, that'll determine when the disappearance and reappearance are going to happen. So, make sure you uh you check out that website. It is a cool event. And if you get great pictures of it, please send them into us. We want to see your images. Now, I did not take that picture of Mars, but I had to post it. It actually like it has to be one of my favorite pictures of Mars right now.

[00:08:54]That was taken by the Psyche spacecraft on the way to the asteroid psyche. It was taken in May. Um the uh the Psyche spacecraft did a gravity flyby, gravity assist of Mars on its way to the metallic asteroid psyche. And I just thought that was a really cool view of crescent Mars. Um, Mars season will be later this year, but again, like I mentioned, you can get an early uh morning glimpse of Mars hanging out with the crescent moon. So, that's go that's what's going on for the solar system.

[00:09:23]But, let's also talk about the sun because it is the solstice. Now, depending on what you know hemisphere you live in, it is the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the first day of winter in the southern hemisphere. So, the solstice takes place on June 21st, 2026 for at 2:24 a.m.

[00:09:45]Mountain time. This is actually when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer. So, when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5 degrees north, that signals the summer solstice. When the sun is directly over the equator, those are your equinoxes, your fall and spring equinox. And then u when the sun is directly over the tropic of Capricorn in December uh that is your first day of winter for us in the northern hemisphere and first day of summer for those in the southern hemisphere. Now I got to showcase that image right there by Kevin Magcgore of Skywatcher. He used his helar 76. Uh look at that image of the Halpha sun.

[00:10:24]You know I showed you guys at the beginning of the video that Halpha solar telescope. It is a phenomenal scope. Um, I I've tried a lot of different solar scopes in the past. This one really gives that that that 3D dimensional pop, getting all the detail. That that scope is unbelievable. They also have a Helioar 100. I did get a chance to look through that at NE. That thing was insane. Um, just the view you get of the sun, the prominences, and the filaments.

[00:10:52]And of course, the white light view.

[00:10:53]That's the view through my SVX90T with the solar filter on the front. Um, great great uh way to look at the sunspots and the detail in the sunspots with the white light filter. So, those are some wonderful websites right there. Time and date does a great job talking about, you know, when the moon's up, when the sun's up, sunset, sun, sun, sunset, sunrise, moonrise, moonset, eclipses, um, when the solsticees and equinoxes are happening. I really do enjoy that sunset. I act or that website. I use that website all the time when I'm traveling to figure out when sunset and sunrises are. So check that out. The SDO, Solar Dynamic Observatory. Um, phenomenal space telescope. Um, it is kind of like the flagship space telescope right now. SOHO, the solar and helospheric observatory. It's also a phenomenal scope. That thing was launched in the 90s and is still operational. So, and then we have the National Solar Observatory. Um, those three websites right there are a great uh great tools to see what's going on, what activity is going on with the sun.

[00:11:57]Um, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Space Weather website is good for finding out when the auroras are happening and solar activity. Even though we are in the summertime, we're not getting the nor the northern lights at the high latitudes. Now, the aurora Australas is still happening in the southern hemisphere, you know, the South Island of New Zealand. even if it's strong enough, you can get them into the North Island and and kind of the south coast of Australia. Um, but if you live at the northern tier states, kind of the uh Canada US border or kind of middle part of Europe, if we have a really good geomagnetic storm, you can get the auroras in the summer. I've actually seen the auroras in the summer in Oregon and that was pretty cool. Um, so and then we also have spaceweather.com, just a phenomenal website that talks about everything space weather and also near-earth asteroids. So again, like I mentioned, even though it is summer and our days are longer and our nights are shorter, we can still get out and do some wonderful viewing, wonderful observing of the sun. And what's great about observing the sun is it looks different every day. And those uh prominences and sunspots can actually change on the daily. So solar viewing is fun. I I love my uh my Helioar 76 and I love my SCX90 with the white light filter. Both those telescopes give you a good kind of full view of the sun. So, happy uh summer solstice and winter solstice in the southern hemisphere, everyone. All right, let's get talk about deep sky objects. So, star clusters, the summer Milky Way is coming. It's, you know, we had galaxy season. You know, I I think that transition from winter into spring into summer is fun because there's just stuff to look at all the time. So, we're going to start off with a whole bunch of globular star clusters. We still have M3 up there in Kenis Venitis. M3 is kind of squished between um Arcturus and Bodies and Core Cari and Kynis Venitis. Um pretty easy globular to get. Check it out. We have M5 and Serpents kind of in between serpents in the in the back part of uh Virgo. So beautiful globular star cluster. The big one for this season of course is M13. M13 up there in Hercules.

[00:14:06]That is the northern hemisphere globular showcase. Um, Peter got a great shot of it there with his uh SVX 127D. So, I love looking at this star cluster. And depending on what latitude you are though, depending on if you're further south, you could actually get Omega Centauri still at the towards the beginning of the evening. So, globulars, globulars, globulars, and now we have, you know, M92 is another really nice globular. I think M13 sometimes um kind of takes away from it, uh, but it's kind of up there in the arms of Hercules. So check out M92. That's another good one.

[00:14:41]And then we have M80 down there in uh in Scorpius. So you got the two pictures of the of the Scorpion. It's up kind of near the upper pincher. So check out M80. Another really good globular. But as as we're starting to descend as the summer mel starting to arise and we're kind of moving into the galactic plane, we're starting to, you know, see a lot more of these star clusters. Globulars tend to hang out around the galactic halo. That's why we kind of see them above and below the Milky Way. But now we're also getting some beautiful open star clusters like NGC 61 uh 24 down low in Scorpius. Just a really nice like textbook uh open star cluster. I personally really like M6 uh and M7 down there by the the the tail or the stinger of of uh of scor of the Scorpion. So those are two really good ones. M7's kind of still pretty low. Oh, M6 is low, too. But they're they're both, I think, really nice showcased down there at kind of like the star fields of the Milky Way. And I really like M29. It is just a nice subtle open star cluster. It it you know, it kind of reminds me of a mini plate or like a like a measuring actually I call the I a lot of people like, "Oh, look the the little dipper."

[00:15:57]I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. That's the plate." I I like to call plates the measuring cup. And if the plates are a measuring cup, then M29 is the teaspoon.

[00:16:08]So, it's just a really nice open star cluster down there kind of in the in the in the long part of M29. Great shot there, Brian. Now, because we are getting into Milky Way season, it's going to be nebulas, nebulas, nebulas. I mean, we've been talking galaxies, galaxies, galaxies, but now it's nebulas, nebulas, nebulas.

[00:16:26]So, check out the row of fuki complex.

[00:16:28]Um it's kind of down there by Antar's up through a fucus of just amazing nebula.

[00:16:34]This is an astrophotographers's dream.

[00:16:37]Lots of cool stuff to pop out in there.

[00:16:39]Um also in that area is the blue horse head IC 4592. Um again I I I've tried to you to do these visually. Getting those UHC filters, those 03 filters to kind of darken the sky and bring out some of the darker nebula is great. But both Roof Fuki and IC 4592 are wonderful astrophotography shots. Same thing with NGC um 7000 Cwell objects 20 the North American Nebula. I can get it nicely with like EHC filter and both my 16inch DOB and my 152 but it's dark. You want that you want those colors and the detail to pop out. Shoot it uh with your cameras. It's a great astrophotography uh object. Same thing with IC 1318, the Sedar region down there in Signis, kind of where the the two uh um the wings and the neck or where the cross comes together. Um lots of great nebulosity in there. And then you have NGC uh 688 Cwell object 27. Um again, UHC filter helps this thing pop out visually, but uh I mean, look at that shot right there that Robert got of uh of it. It's just it's a cool nebula for sure. So check that one out. Lot of great stuff right along the the body or the long part of of of the cross of Signis or the neck of the swan. Um, a lot of cool stuff. We are also starting to get Sephas rising.

[00:18:03]So Sephas is coming up. You're getting all the nebula in there. But the Iris Nebula, cool reflection nebulas.

[00:18:09]Reflection nebulas are hard to get. So I'll be excited to see what you guys get with the blue horse head and the iris.

[00:18:14]Send them to us. I'd love to see what you get. My favorite planetary nebulas coming up. M57, the Ring Nebula, and Lyra. That's just a that's a that's a summer showcase object. Any size telescope. It's just a it's an easy planetary. Um, and depending on your aperture and size and your and your and your photos, you can get the you can get the white dwarf right in the middle. So, go for that one. We also have Abel 39.

[00:18:41]Um, you know, John got a phenomenal image of that. There's a lot of planetaries out there, a lot of lists of planetaries. So, Abel 39, great shot there. That one's up in Hercules. Um, yeah, and for for for me personally, I like um looking at planetary and 03 because it pops out that oxygen. So, and I know some people are using hydrogen to pull out the stuff around it, too. So, have fun, experiment, let us know what you get. So, we are in the beginning of Milky Way season, so lots of good nebulas, but we are still hanging on to galaxy season, right? So, lots of great galaxies. We, you know, Draco's got that little kind of grouping there. Uh, NGC 5985, NGC 5982 and NGC 5981.

[00:19:26]So, check out that nice little grouping there. Um, we have Ursa Major, of course, still up there high in the sky.

[00:19:33]You have the pin wheel, M101, M108.

[00:19:35]There's a whole bunch of galaxies. M81 and M82 are starting to get a little low. If you catch them early in the night, you still might be able to get those. Um, we also have Kanis Venetc with M63, M94. Look at that great image that Stan got of uh of uh M106 and of course down below Bill got those beautiful galaxies in and Draco want to give that little shout out there. Um, but yeah, so Kenis Venitis is still nice and high. U M51, right? It's up there in Kanis Venitis the uh the whirl pool. Um, Koma Bernes and Virgo still hanging high. Um, you want to get those kind of because they're they're starting to cross over to the meridian so we can still get these galaxies. Yep. You got a busy night, get the galaxies in the beginning of the night, get the nebulas later on in the night because depending on how long you stay up, the Milky Way is just going to get higher and higher.

[00:20:26]So, this is just a great time of year to get all this stuff. So, lots of galaxies, lots of fun things to check out. But, you know me, always got to end you with some binaries. So, let's get to it. Let's talk about Ada Draonus up there in Draco. Uh, I really do like this one. I got my notes here. This is a big magnitude difference. That primary is is bright. That secondary is really, really faint. The primary has a nice kind of yellowish orange color, and the secondary is white. Now, I will tell you that the separation's there, but that brightness difference, you're seeing is really going to play on this one. when I was observing it, my seeing was popping in and out and I I could get that that that that secondary with my 152, but I had to have that steady seeing. So, the separation's easy. It's that seeing that that that can be challenging. So, check it out. Try that one. So, pop over to Ursa Major. Um, now last month we talked about Aula Borealis. This month we're going to talk about Aula Ostrellis. This is a cool binary. I love how both these stars are right next to each other.

[00:21:29]They're both right down there in the foot of of the bear. This is a wonderful nice tight uh pair. The primary is slightly brighter than the secondary and they have a kind of a yellowish orange color. So that's fun. So check that one out. Now once you go there, swing on down to Scorpius to Delta I'm sorry to beta scorpi scorpi. Um one of the the pinchers of the scorpion. This is just a nice binary. It's a nice white pair. the primary is brighter than the secondary and they are easy to separate. So, you know, it's just a nice pair to to see.

[00:22:04]So, check that out down there in Scorpius. And then from there, swing back on up to uh to Delta Serpents. Um this is kind of right off of again this one is just a really nice binary. also good separation, great white color primary, uh obviously brighter than the secondary, just a really a really nice binary to check out. So, always try and give you guys, you know, just good solid binaries, but also some challenging ones, good color separation. Um, just have fun, right? Get out there and observe these binaries. And I say it all the time, but I'm just impressed with how refractors, the SVX line, really just pop out these things and allow us to get these great views of binaries.

[00:22:49]So, check that out. So, it is June. It is the beginning of Milky Way season. It is the summer solstice. So, get out there and view the sun. Now, if you are doing solar viewing, again, please make sure you have the proper uh filters. We want to keep these eyes for image processing and looking through eyepieces. So, make sure you got that white light filter to to to to protect your eyes when viewing or halpha. So, get out there, enjoy the summer solstice. Um, enjoy Milky Way season.

[00:23:19]Uh, it is I I love the warmer evenings.

[00:23:22]I love getting out to dark skies and seeing that Milky Way rising and and going across the sky. Um, you know, I it's barbecue season, so get out there, barbecue, set up that telescope, share it with your family and friends, and also get in contact with your local astronomy club. Find out what outreach events they have going on. Figure out what star parties are going on. Get involved with your local astronomy community because that is what's going to keep our community growing, growing, growing, and growing. And uh that's how we just get the next generation stoked on astronomy. So get out there, have fun, and keep looking up.