Jupiter Season Opens

This June marks the official beginning of Jupiter Season. The gas giant passes opposition on the 5th, when it rises around 8pm and transits at 1am. Unfortunately it stays low: even when it transits it’s only 30 degrees up. Still, there’s plenty to see on Jupiter even when it’s down in the atmospheric murk, so aim the telescope low and take a look!

Venus continues its long – running and beautiful evening show.It reaches greatest elongation (greatest distance from the sun) on the 9th, when it will be a hefty 35 degrees up at sunset.A few days later, on the 12th and 13th, Venus passes near the Beehive cluster (M44).

Saturn hovers a bit above the much brighter Venus the evening sky. It’s too low to see much detail, but you can still catch a view of the rings (and amaze your friends) before it disappears behind the sun.

Mercury, too, is visible in the evening skies. It’s an easy target at the beginning of June, but by month’s end its crescent wanes to a snippet and it draws so close to the sun that it will be difficult to find. Watch it day to day as it sinks toward the sun, and see how its crescent gets slimmer and larger every day.

Pluto is at opposition on the 19th. It’s at the southeast corner of Ophiuchus – well, actually it’s technically in the northwest corner of Sagittarius, but you’ll find it most easily by starting from Sabik (Eta Ophiuchus), hopping to Xi Serpens then swinging three and a quarter degrees east – southeast. Of course, you’ll want better directions than that to identify the tiny magnitude 13.9 speck, especially in this crowded star field. Use a reliable chart, like the one from the RASC Observer’s Handbook, or a good planetarium program.

If you have more than one planetarium program, try them all. Pluto’s orbit is surprisingly complicated, and a lot of planetarium programs don’t get it right. If you can find two that show it in exactly the same place, that’s a good start.

Neptune rises around midnight, and Uranus a bit over an hour or so later. That makes them not very well suited to observing this month, unless you’re already up observing into the wee hours.

But there’s something brighter to see than Neptune. Ever wanted to see an asteroid, but felt like the hunt would be too difficult? The brightest asteroid, 4 Vesta, was at opposition last month, and this month it remains barely within reach of the naked eye ... if that eye belongs to a sharp observer at a dark site. It’s a hair brighter than 6th magnitude all month, and you’ll find it in northern Scorpius. Use a planetarium program or online chart to find it: it begins June a little over a degree south of the globular M107, then skims westward. At mid – month it makes a triangle for a few days with a couple of other 6th magnitude stars before bending southwest into emptier skies.

Mars is barely visible at the break of dawn. It’s still far away, though, and you won’t be able to see much detail on it yet, so keep waiting ... you’ll get a better chance at the red planet later this year.