Podcaster: Ralph & Paul
Title : Awesome Astronomy’s June Sky Guide
Organization: Awesome Astronomy
Link : www.awesomeastronomy.com
Description: What to look out, and up, for in June. We start with the constellation of Lyra in our beginners’ and young observers’ guide, and end it with a few deep sky challenges for you to hunt down. Next up is the moon and a couple of planetary conjunctions to enjoy. Mars, Saturn & Jupiter feature in the planetary round up for Northern Hemisphere observers. We then round up the best of the deep sky offerings for June with a tour of Hercules’ globular clusters, galaxies and a planetary nebula
Bio: Awesome Astronomy is the show for anyone and everyone who has even the slightest interest in astronomy and science.
Join Ralph & Paul at the beginning of each month, for an informative and fun astronomy programme telling you what to look out (and up) for every month. You can be guaranteed a passion for astronomy, simple explanations of complex and fundamental topics, space and science news, absorbing interviews and listeners’ astronomy questions answered.
As both presenters have been accused of being a little skeptical in the past, you can also expect everything to be frivolous but fact-based
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2014, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.
Transcript:
Paul: June and unless you’re a dedicated solar astronomer it’s difficult to get excited about this month astronomically with the short, bright nights- though the comfortable temperatures and dry weather are more than welcome so we shouldn’t be too grumpy! This month of course sees us once again at Summer solstice when the north pole points towards the sun and the northern hemisphere experiences it’s longest periods of daylight. This year solstice occurs at 10:51 UT on June 21st as the sun reaches the highest point in the northern sky on it’s apparent yearly journey. But despite the short hours of darkness there is plenty still to see, with a good lunar conjunction and some beautiful summer sky objects to hunt down. So Ralph what do you have lined up for the beginners?
Ralph: Well, this month for the beginners and young astronomers, we’re going to look at one of the smallest constellations in the night sky Lyra. Although all constellations extend quite a way further than the stars that we pick shapes out of, the primary stars that make up the harp shape of Lyra would all easily fit within the bowl of the Plough. But this small constellation still packs quite a punch, with a nice variety of objects to observe in Spring, particularly Summer and into early Autumn.
We know we’re not far from summer now because the first stars we’ll spot as it starts to get dark are the three stars that make up the Summer Triangle.
Looking south east, there will be a bright star not far above the horizon, Altair in the constellation Aquilla the Eagle. A bit more than an outstretched hand’s width to the left and slightly higher in the sky is Deneb in Cygnus the Swan. And about halfway between the two, and higher yet, is the brightest of the triplet Vega
Vega is the starting point in our tour of Lyra and in one regard, it’s the start of it all because this is the star used to denote a brightness of magnitude 0. Interestingly, due to the gradual drift of the celestial poles, Vega was also the pole star when our ancestors first began making pottery some 14 thousand years ago.
Hanging down in a line from Vega is two much fainter stars, zeta and delta Lyrae – which you may struggle to see in city skies. And then the familiar shape of the harp is completed with two more stars sitting parallel to zeta and delta just below and to the right. These have the beautiful sounding names Sheliak and Sulafat.
Apart from being huge distant stars, both more that twice the temperature of our sun, Sheliak and sulafat have a more pressing purpose for amateur astronomers because halfway between the two sits M57, the Ring Nebula. This is one of the finest planetary nebulas in the whole sky. With binoculars it will look like a fuzzy star but a small scope with increased magnification will show it as a delicate smoke ring. Larger scopes will show it as two overlapping rings with a very faint magnitude 15 star in the middle. This is the white dwarf remnant of the star that died more than a thousand years ago, coughing away its atmosphere to create this nebula for us all now.
Another treat that Lyra gives us is Epsilon Lyrae or the Double Double.
Hold your hand out and look about one finger’s width to the left of Vega – in a kind of 8 o’clock position. If you put a small scope there with low magnification to start with, you’ll see a magnitude 6 star, which sits 162 light years away.
Increase the magnification and you’ll split this star into two similar looking stars. Increase the magnification further and both stars will split again – hence the Double Double. I like doing this with a zoom eyepiece to give it an animated feel, almost like watching cells or bacteria dividing.
Paul: Planets this month are thin on the ground with Jupiter now in the glow of the sun as it approaches solar conjunction in July, Mars while still visible for much of the night is well past it’s peak back in mid-april and fading to magnitude 0. Venus is still gracing the morning skies but is not in a dark sky and while bright at mag -3.8 it is competing with the long summer dawn.
Neptune in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces are beginning their slow return to the night sky this month but don’t hold your breath as the short observation window and great distance there is little to observe and we wait for better things in the late summer when neptune reaches opposition and the autumn when Uranus will be at it’s best.
While low down in the sky for northern observers this is still the time to look for Saturn in libra. Opposition was last month but the view will still be a good one and the ringworld is up all night, setting at around 3am. Look out for the brighter moons such as titan, rhea and enceladus as well as trying to resolve the cassini division in those glorious icy rings.
The moon ended may with new moon on the 28th so june begins with a darker sky as the moon is just a few days old. First quarter is reached on the 5th at 20.39 UT and full is reached on june 13th 4.11 UT. Last quarter is reached at 18.39 UT on the 19th and we are back to new moon on the 27th at 9.08 UT.
The highlight of the moons encounters this month is on the 7th when we have a close conjunction with Mars, the red planet and the moon being separated by just 2 degrees. Saturn is nearby on the 10th, while another close conjunction occurs in the early hours of tge summer solstice on june 21st when Uranus will be just below the moon by less than a degree. Look out for the moon and venus on the morning of the 24th.
If you fancy a deep sky tour this month then June is a good time to look at the constellation of Hercules. This is a famous but dim grouping if stars and many struggle to locate it immediately. Look for the keystone of four stars and around that you should be able to locate the arms and legs of the greek hero. In Hercules you will find two of the best northern hemisphere globular clusters, the great cluster M13 which at mag 6 is naked eye visible in a good sky and the smaller and fainter but no less beautiful M92. Both are collections of ancient stars orbiting beyond the galactic disc at around 25-26000 light years distant and are prime examples of this type if object m92 being the most ancient of these objects known.
A fainter globular in hercules is ngc6229 which at 100000 light years is also 4 times more distant. It has a compact bright core but overall 6229 is mag 9.4 and a challenge to find.
Ngc6210 is a nice planetary nebula visible in medium scopes. 4000 light years distant it will appear as a blue green elliptical disc.
Last to mention in hercules is the hercules cluster of galaxies. These are a 500 million light year distant group of 200 interacting galaxies that are themselves part of the hercules super cluster which is part of a feature known as the cfa2 great wall one if the largest known structures in the universe at 500 million light years long and includes the leo cluster.
I wish you dark skies and happy hunting.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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