<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The good news?\u00a0 Summer officially begins with the <\/span>Summer Solstice <\/b>on Tuesday June 21 at 5:14 a.m. EDT.\u00a0 The bad news?\u00a0 We won\u2019t dwell on it because there will be weeks of long summer days to enjoy before we actually notice, but our daylight hours will begin to slowly decrease from the <\/span>SS<\/b> until the <\/span>Winter Solstice <\/b>in December.\u00a0 The <\/span>Earth\u2019s axis<\/b> is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of the planetary orbits around the <\/span>Sun, <\/b>thus the <\/span>Northern Hemisphere<\/b> leans toward the Sun at this time of the year.\u00a0 The combination of increased solar radiation from the high Sun angle and the longer period of daylight combine to bring us our summer season.\u00a0 We normally do not get into our warmest weather until July as it takes some time for the Earth to absorb this increased energy input.\u00a0 Those of us living near Lake Superior find both the land and water temperature lagging a little farther behind than points farther inland, but we enjoy the added warmth once fall arrives.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All four naked-eye planets (that is, planets one can see without using a telescope or binoculars) will be on display this month.\u00a0 They will be visible 45 minutes before sunrise and their line up will match the correct order of their actual distances from the Sun.\u00a0 By the week of June 17, they will be joined by <\/span>Mercury <\/b>and that is where we will start.\u00a0 To see this unique lineup, locate Mercury close to the horizon in the ENE<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/b>A telescopic view will show it to be 36 percent illuminated at a magnitude of +0.5 but it will continue getting brighter throughout the month.\u00a0 Slightly higher and to the south (or right) of Mercury will be <\/span>Venus<\/b> which will appear a much brighter -3.8 mag (remember, the smaller the number, the brighter the object appears).\u00a0 Higher above the horizon in an ESE direction one can find <\/span>Mars<\/b> residing in the constellation of <\/span>Aquarius <\/b>at a much dimmer +0.8 magnitude.\u00a0 The <\/span>Waning Crescent Moon<\/b> will be just to the right of Mars on June 22.\u00a0 <\/span>Jupiter <\/b>can be found just above the old Crescent Moon on June 21, but being second in brightness to Venus shining at -2.9 mag, it won\u2019t be hard to find even without the Moon assist.\u00a0 <\/span>Neptune <\/b>(mag +7.8) will require binoculars to locate just above and to the left of the <\/span>Last Quarter Moon <\/b>on June 20, and <\/span>Uranus <\/b>will appear to the East after mid-month.\u00a0 Uranus will be a challenge as it will be near the naked eye limit of visibility at +5.6 mag.\u00a0 Look for it between Venus and the last crescent moon on June 24 when it will be a third closer to the Moon than to Venus.\u00a0 The <\/span>Earth<\/b> will not be totally left out of this grouping if we let the Moon represent us –\u00a0 the waning crescent Moon can substitute for our Blue Marble when it appears between Venus and Mars on June 23-25.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rest of the Lunar highlights not already mentioned include the <\/span>First Quarter <\/b>on June 7, the <\/span>Full Moon<\/b> on June 14 (when it will also be at<\/span> perigee<\/b> or closest approach to the Earth at 222,098 miles at 7 p.m. EDT), and the <\/span>New Moon <\/b>will take place on June 28 (about three hours before the most distant Moon of the year when it will be 252,637 miles from the Earth).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For the June observing challenge, it will be helpful to use binoculars.\u00a0 On June 23, 45 minutes before sunrise, Venus and Mercury will be just 10 degrees apart, or one the width of a fist\u00a0 held at arm\u2019s length.\u00a0 By contrast, the Mercury to Neptune alignment described above will span 105 degrees, or just about ten fist- widths.\u00a0 For more information on locating faint planets, visit the Extra Content Page at abramsplanetarium.org\/msta\/.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With the evening sky being rather void of planetary observations this month, we will leave you one other viewing challenge for late in the month.\u00a0 In the WNW 30 minutes after sunset, one should be able to see a very young crescent Moon on June 29 and 30.\u00a0 On the 29th, it will appear very close to the horizon just under the twin stars <\/span>Castor <\/b>and <\/span>Pollux<\/b> in <\/span>Gemini, the Twins.<\/b>\u00a0 On June 30th, the Twins will be just to the right, or north of the Moon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A little less challenging but no less enjoyable to observe in the night sky, be sure to seek out the <\/span>Summer Triangle<\/b> embedded in the <\/span>Milky Way<\/b>.\u00a0 Comprised of the brightest starts in <\/span>Cygnus the Swan (Deneb), Aquila, the Eagle (Altair), <\/b>and <\/span>Lyra, the Harp (Vega), <\/b>it is one of the most well known <\/span>asterisms <\/b>(an asterism is a grouping of stars that form a pattern but are not actually constellations.\u00a0 The <\/span>Big Dipper<\/b> is a good example – it is the most recognizable part of the much larger grouping of <\/span>Ursa Major, the Great Bear<\/b>).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscriptioan information can be found on\u00a0 their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 As long as we are talking about sunshine and summer time . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The good news?\u00a0 Summer officially begins with the Summer Solstice on Tuesday June 21 at 5:14 a.m. EDT.\u00a0 The bad news?\u00a0 We won\u2019t dwell on it because there will be weeks of long summer days to enjoy before we actually notice, but our daylight hours will begin to slowly decrease from the SS until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2535,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531\/revisions\/2535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}