The Night Sky This Month

Northern HemisphereIan Morison tells us what we can see in the Northern Hemisphere night sky during June 2019.Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the northern hemisphere’s night sky during June 2019.The PlanetsJupiter, shining at magnitude -2.6 throughout the month, reaches opposition on June 10th and is thus visible throughout the night. Its angular size is 46 arc seconds across. Jupiter lies in the south of Ophiuchus up and to the left of Antares in Scorpius. A highlight gives the times when the Great Red Spot faces the Earth. Sadly it is heading towards the southernmost part of the ecliptic so, as it crosses the meridian, it will only have an elevation of ~14 degrees (Central UK). Atmospheric dispersion will thus take its toll and an atmospheric dispersion corrector would greatly help to improve our views of the giant planet. Saturn, shining with a magnitude increasing from +0.3 to +0.1 during the month, rises around 22:00 UT at the beginning of June so crosses the meridian in the early hours of the