In the Sky This Month

Mars teams up with the Moon the next few mornings. Tomorrow, they climb into good view by 2 or 3 a.m., with Mars close to the left of the Moon. It looks like a bright orange star. They will be even closer together at first light.

Vega, the brightest star of Lyra, is in the east-northeast at nightfall. The remains of a star that was once like Vega stand to its lower right: the Ring Nebula. You need a telescope to see the nebula, which is thousands of light-years away.

Vega, one of the brighter stars in the summer sky, is climbing to prominence. It’s well up in the east-northeast as darkness falls, and stands directly overhead around 2:30 or 3 a.m.

A beautiful trio highlights the after-midnight sky tonight: the Moon and the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter is the brighter of the two worlds, but Saturn stands closer to the Moon.

Jupiter follows the Moon across the sky tonight. Jupiter looks like a brilliant star to the left of the Moon as they climb into good view around midnight. The fainter planet Saturn is close to the upper left of Jupiter.

The Big Dipper is high in the sky at nightfall, with the bowl hanging upside down. It is part of Ursa Major, the great bear. There’s more to the bear than just the dipper. His legs and the rest of his body extend far below and to the left of the dipper.

The Moon is full today, lining up opposite the Sun in our sky. It is known as the Rose Moon, Strawberry Moon, or Flower Moon. Because it occurs just a couple of weeks before the summer solstice, the Moon follows an unusually low path across the sky.

The bright star Antares is easy to spot tonight because it rises below the full Moon. The heart of the scorpion will be even closer to the Moon at first light tomorrow.

After reigning as the brilliant “evening star” for months, the planet Venus has disappeared in the twilight. It passes between the Sun and Earth today, moving into the morning sky as it does so. It will become visible as the “morning star” in a few days.

The planet Mercury is near its farthest point from the Sun for its current evening appearance. It is low in the west-northwest as night begins to fall, about half-way between the bright stars Procyon, to the left of Mercury, and Capella.