From a stargazer's perspective, June and July are lacking because they have the shortest nights of the year, and you have to wait until late at night to take in the starry show. In fact, good stargazing can't really begin until after 10 p.m., and the show is pretty much over by 4:30 a.m., when morning twilight begins. Get your afternoon nap so you can enjoy nature's late summer star show, and remember to have the mosquito juice at the ready.
The transition in the night sky is just about complete. The stars and constellations of winter are pretty much gone from our skies, all setting well before the sun. Among the few bright winter stars left are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini the Twins, and toward the end of evening twilight, between 9:30 and 10 p.m., you can see them side by side in the low northwestern sky.
The brightest "star" in the evening sky is actually the planet Jupiter just to the left of and much brighter than Castor and Pollux. Don't wait too long after evening twilight ends to direct your telescope toward Jupiter and up to four of its bigger moons because the big guy of the solar system sets shortly after 10 p.m.
There are two other planets for your perusal in the evening sky this month: Mars and Saturn. Mars is the brightest star-like object in the fairly low south-southwestern sky at the start of evening, and you can easily see its reddish-orange hue with the naked eye. Even though Mars is still fairly close to the Earth at a little more than 75 million miles away, it's tough to see many surface features on Mars even if you have a larger telescope. The first quarter moon will be hanging around Mars in the southern sky next weekend.
Saturn is not too far away from Mars in low south-southeast heavens and is the brightest star-like object in that part of the sky. Despite being more than 825 million miles away, it's an absolute delight to ponder with even a small telescope. You can clearly see the massive ring system of Saturn and at least some of its many moons, although, if you can stay up until after 11 p.m., you can see Saturn and its attendants a lot more clearly through a little less of Earth's blurring atmosphere near the horizon. It's worth the wait.
If you lie back on that reclining lawn chair and look straight overhead toward the zenith, you'll easily see the nearly upside-down Big Dipper. Not far from the end of the Dipper's handle you'll see a bright orange star. That's Arcturus, the second brightest star in the sky, which is about 36 light years or 208 trillion miles away (give or take a billion miles). The light that we see tonight from Arcturus, almost 70 times the diameter of our sun, left that star when Gerald Ford was our president. Arcturus is also the brightest star in the constellation Bootes the hunting farmer, which actually looks more like a giant nocturnal kite with Arcturus at the tail of the kite.
Over in the eastern skies, the stars of summer are making their initial evening appearance. Leading the way is Vega, the brightest star of Lyra the Harp. A little to the lower left of Vega is Deneb, the brightest shiner is in Cygnus the Swan, otherwise known as the "Northern Cross," rising sideways in the east. Deneb lies at the head of cross and is more than 1,500 light years from Earth. Remember, just one light year equals almost six trillion miles. Deneb is a moderately bright star in our sky but looks are deceiving. It's almost 400,000 times more powerful than our sun and more than 250 million miles in diameter. Our own sun is less than a million miles in girth. Deneb would be a whole lot brighter in our sky except that it's so very far away. The starlight we see from Deneb this month left that star around 600 AD.
Celestial hugging
Next weekend the first quarter moon will be hanging around Mars in the south-southwest sky and should be a fabulous sight.
(Lynch is an amateur astronomer and author of the book, "Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations." Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.)