Planetary Line-Up Graces Pre-Dawn Sky June 19-21, 2009

Contact: Rebecca Johnson
Editor, StarDate Magazine
512-475-6763; rjohnson@stardate.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 16, 2009

A great line-up of planets will light up the pre-dawn sky later this week. From June 19 to 21, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon will put on quite a show, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.

Starting June 19, look for Venus blazing as the "morning star" due east around an hour to 45 minutes before sunrise. Fainter Mars will be a little to its lower left, with Mercury a good bit farther to the lower left. Although Mercury looks like a bright star, it will be so low in the sky that you may need binoculars to pick it out.

The little Pleiades star cluster will stand to the upper right of Mercury, forming the shoulder of the constellation Taurus, the bull.

The Moon will be well to the upper right of Venus and Mars on the morning of the 18th, and directly above them on the 19th. It moves closer to the Pleiades on the 20th, and a little left of Mercury on the 21st, when it will be the slimmest of crescents.

Published bi-monthly by The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory, StarDate magazine provides readers with skywatching tips, skymaps, beautiful astronomical photos, astronomy news and features, and a 32-page Sky Almanac each January.

Established in 1932, The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, hosts multiple telescopes undertaking a wide range of astronomical research under the darkest night skies of any professional observatory in the continental United States. McDonald is home to the consortium-run Hobby-Eberly Telescope, one of the world's largest, which will soon be upgraded to begin the HET Dark Energy Experiment. An internationally known leader in astronomy education and outreach, McDonald Observatory is also pioneering the next generation of astronomical research as a founding partner of the Giant Magellan Telescope.