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This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report through June 11th, 2020. Here’s what’s happening in the skies of southern California.
The planet closest to the sun, Mercury, is the only bright planet currently visible in the early evening. Look for it as the glow of twilight fades, starting at 8:30 p.m. Mercury then is low in the west-northwest sky, to the left of the brilliant star Capella, in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer. It is also directly below the bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini the Twins. Mercury, gradually fading and moving closer to the horizon as the evenings go by, becomes a little harder to see over time. Soon Mercury will be lost to our view in the glare of the sun, just as Venus is now.
Early evening in June is a great time to find the Big Dipper, a pattern of seven bright stars that is very high in the northern sky as darkness falls. The Dipper, a kind of sauce pan, can be imagined with the open side of the pan facing downward on the right, and the pan’s long bent handle on the left.
The Big Dipper is the key to identifying a number of important stars that surround it, including Polaris, the North Star, so if you are interested in learning the sky, the Big Dipper is a great place to start.
The Fort Worth, Texas Astronomical Society’s Web Page has a guide that thoroughly explains how to use the Big Dipper to find your way around the sky.
The moon is full on the 5th when it lights the sky all night long. It is waning gibbous on the following nights through the 11th. During this period, Moonrise occurs an average of 46 minutes later than it did the night before, so the time of moonrise changes from 7:08 p.m. on the 4th, to 12:29 a.m. on the 11th.
At midnight, two brilliant objects gleam side by side above the southeast horizon. Both are planets; the brighter of the pair, at right, is Jupiter, and on the left, Saturn. As the hours pass, the rotation of our planet makes Jupiter and Saturn move steadily westward together in an arc that brings them to their highest position, in the south, just as dawn starts. By then, the planet Mars, its orange glow now outshining gold-hued Saturn, is easy to spot far to Saturn’s lower left. Mars is located roughly midway between Saturn and the eastern point on the horizon.
Use a telescope to see the banded cloud structure of Jupiter, the beautiful rings of Saturn, and the brilliant white of the south polar cap of Mars.
The waning gibbous moon will pass by Jupiter on the 8th and by Saturn on the 9th. On the 10th and 11th it is between Saturn and Mars.
The International Space Station, to which is docked the SpaceX crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour, will sail over Los Angeles on the 4th. It will travel from the northwest horizon to its highest point, 59 degrees above the southwest horizon, between 9:11 and 9:15 p.m. It will be visible for another two minutes as it descends into the Earth’s shadow, where it will vanish 24 degrees above the south-southeast horizon.
On June 8th, a large number of SpaceX Starlink satellites will move across the sky, in approximately 30 second intervals, between 8:39 p.m. and 9:19 p.m. Each satellite is expected to appear slightly fainter than the main stars of the Big Dipper. The satellites will all move generally from the southwest to the northeast, but the direction of the highest point reached by successive satellites will shift from the southwest to overhead and then to the southeast over the course of this passage.
Because of measures in place that are intended to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 Corona virus, Griffith Observatory remains closed until further notice. Consequently, all public telescopes are closed, and all public events have been cancelled. Please check the Griffith Observatory homepage for current information and continued updates of the situation.
Follow The Sky Report, All Space Considered, and Griffith Observatory, on Twitter for updates on astronomy and space-related events.
From Griffith Observatory, I’m Anthony Cook, and I can be reached at Anthony.Cook@lacity.org.