Tour June's Sky! | May 31st, 2011

By: J. Kelly Beatty May 31, 2011 0

Use an MP3 player to listen to SkyandTelescope.com's Sky Tour Podcasts.

S&T: Lauren Darby

It’ll be a snap to keep track of the Moon this month. It’s new on June 1st, full on the 15th, and new again on July 1st. Remarkably, there’ll be an eclipse on each of those days, with two partial solar eclipses sandwiched around a total lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, none of these are really visible from North America.

The only bright evening planet in view is Saturn. At dusk you'll find it shining about halfway up in the southern sky at dusk. Due to a slow about-face in its apparent motion, Saturn spends the entire month within ½° of a medium-bright star called Porrima.

To Saturn's right is the constellation Leo, the Lion, and to its left are Libra and Scorpius. To ancient skywatchers, Libra's rather dim stars represented the claws of the Scorpion.

Find out more about sky sights and more by downloading June's audio sky tour. It's a 3-megabyte MP3 file that's 5½ minutes long.

About J. Kelly Beatty

J. Kelly Beatty, S&T Senior Editor, joined the staff of Sky Publishing in 1974 and specializes in planetary science and space exploration. Learn more about him here.