Skywatch – June

With the short nights of June now upon us, many people do not think it is worth observing the night sky during the month – how wrong could they be!  Although the sky does not get truly dark, the planets are always well worth observing and you can use the time to acquaint yourself with the summer constellations, then hunt down a few of the season’s best deep sky objects.  There is nothing better than lying in a reclining chair late into the night, just watching the stars slip gently across the sky.

Planets

Despite its lowness in the sky, Saturn is centre stage for the month, reaching its brightest and with the rings showing at their best for a long while.  Binoculars will show that there is something not quite right with the planet, but adopt a modest telescope and you will see the rings, which whilst being extremely wide are also extremely thin.  On the night of the 14/15 June, the rings may well appear brighter as the Earth lies directly between the Sun and Saturn so the rings are bouncing sunlight straight back to us. Look for Saturn to the south east, rising at around 22:30.

Jupiter is still with us, visible from the sunset to around 01:00. For those who prefer early mornings, Venus becomes more prominent as the month progresses, rising at around 3am.

The Moon lies close to Jupiter on 3rd June, and on the 9/10 June the full Moon passes over Saturn.  On the longest day of 21 June, Venus and the crescent moon make a fine pair to observe.

Constellation

This month’s constellation is Lyra (The Lyre), one of the key summer constellations, and part of what is known as the Summer Triangle.  Lyra also holds one of the brightest stars in the sky, Vega, two fairly easy to find Messier (M) objects, plus a pair of stars known as the “Double Double.”

Greek mythology tells us that Lyra was the lyre (harp) of Orpheus whose venture into the underworld is one of the most famous Greek myths. Losing his true love to Hades, King of the Underworld, the inconsolable Orpheus wandered the countryside playing his lyre until his death.

Lyra contains the 5th brightest star in the sky, Vega, a bright blue white colour lying some 25 light years away.  Fairly close to Vega sits the “Double Double”; on the face of it, this is a double star that is easily seen as two with binoculars; however each star is in itself a double star, which the keen eyed with a telescope can also split into two. To locate Vega, look to the east at around 23:30 and you should see a bright star rising – this is Vega!

Lyra also includes one of the most famous deep sky objects, and one of the simpler ones to locate, the Ring Nebula M57.  The Ring is a planetary nebula which is a term describing the remains of a dead star, much like our Sun, which ends its life by expanding and shedding its outer layers of gas, which become illuminated by the remains of the star’s core.

You can locate the Ring Nebula by first identifying the bottom two stars of Lyra – Sulafat and Sheliak.  Between these two almost halfway lies the Ring.  If you use larger binoculars such as 15 x 70 or above, you can make out that one of the stars does not look quite right, but point a telescope with say 40x to 60x magnification will show you the smoky, ghost-like Ring Nebula.  In actual fact the Ring designation is slightly untrue – it is actually a tube, but we are in the right place to be looking down the middle of it.

For those with telescopes and who like a challenge, why not see if you can find M56?  This is a faint globular cluster, which lies roughly half way between Alberio in Cygnus and Sulafat in Lyra, but has an open chevron of stars to help to locate it.  Binoculars show the faint chevron (enlarged on the finder map) so finding this is a good start; M56 lies at the bottom of the chevron, but does not need a high power to see it.