Welcome to summer time stargazing 2025. We’re going to take a look on the night time sky and a few of the issues we are able to see by way of June. Hopefully, these nights are heat sufficient to really feel comfy stargazing. We must wait a bit to see the celebs because the solar units later on this month than others. To assist benefit from staying up later it’s often very useful to maintain telephones away, in order that our eyes can adapt to the darkish, and head out of the cities and cities to cut back the influence of sunshine air pollution. It does take some time for our eyes to adapt within the first place so the much less we use our telephones the higher on this case.
Constellations
Picture Credit score: Stellarium/Mark Grimley
Libra doesn’t symbolize an animal, legendary creature or hero. It’s an on a regular basis object (from again within the day), it’s a set of scales. It’s the solely one of many zodiac constellations that’s an object and never a creature or individual. Its brightest star is named β Libra, or Zubeneschamali (I spellchecked it twice), a reputation that comes from Arabic. Lots of our present constellations have a mixture of influences which can be Greek, Roman and Center Jap.
Scorpius represents a scorpion within the night time sky, with the form vaguely resembling the tail and pincer of the arachnid. That is an previous constellation and will have survived from historic Sumeria and Babylon, modern-day Iraq and Iran. The brightest star on this constellation is Antares, which the rival of Ares, or rival to Ares, who was the Greek equal to Mars (just like the planet). The constellation is kind of low within the Southern sky as we view it from Armagh, and extra seen from the southern hemisphere. The moon can even go by way of this constellation on the tenth – 11th of June.
Picture Credit score: Stellarium/Mark Grimley
Each of those constellations are zodiac constellations. Which implies that the solar will go in entrance of them throughout the 12 months, so these constellations can be a background to the solar throughout the day, if we didn’t have a blue sky. These constellations are additionally fairly low within the sky from the angle from Armagh; to see them extra clearly it’s best to position your self to the south of any metropolis, so the sunshine air pollution doesn’t mar your view.
The Moon
The Full moon will happen on Wednesday the 11th of June, beneath the constellation of Ophiuchus, however the constellation will seemingly not be seen because the solar could have risen by then. It’s going to occur at round 08:43 a.m., so hopefully we are able to see it in a transparent blue sky. Like the opposite months, this full moon has a number of nicknames becoming the timing of it around the globe. In North America, it coincides with strawberries turning into ripe sufficient to reap, so it’s the Strawberry Moon. Elements of Europe seek advice from it because the Rose moon and different elements of the world name it the Scorching Moon, because the warmth can actually decide up round this time of 12 months.
It doesn’t matter what identify we name it, the important thing characteristic is that it seems as a totally lit disc within the sky, lit up by the suns mild and mirrored all the way down to Earth.
Deep Sky Objects
The Horsehead Nebula about 520 lightyears away from us is a wonderful instance of a nebula, and is seen right now of the 12 months. This one displays the sunshine of close by stars in the direction of us, however a telescope can be useful to have the ability to see it within the sky.
The Horsehead Nebula. Picture Credit score: Stellarium/Mark Grimley
The lagoon nebula is way additional away, at greater than 4,000 lightyears away. This one is way redder in color than the earlier nebula, with loads of vivid stars in the identical area of the sky.
Telescopes assist us see these way more clearly and in the event you can join a digicam, you may get some lengthy publicity to deliver out extra mild from the darker areas.
The Lagoon Nebula. Picture Credit score: Stellarium/Mark Grimley
Summer season Solstice
This month additionally sees the summer time solstice on the 21st of June. That is the “longest day” within the Northern Hemisphere, however solely within the hours of daylight that we get. Thoughts you Armagh isn’t referred to as a sunshine vacation spot, so we often count on some cloud protection. Merely put, that is the day this 12 months that the solar will rise the earliest and set the newest. So which means now we have restricted time for any stargazing on the nights round at the present time.
Glad Stargazing 😊
