The Night Sky in June 2026
By now we will all have noticed the longer days and shorter nights, even if the weather has not been the best for astronomy lately. June 21st marks the Summer Solstice and it is officially summer. The solstice occurs when the Sun reaches its northernmost or southernmost latitude. 21st June will be the shortest day of the year. The Sun will have reached a line called the Tropic of Cancer which is 23°26’ north of the Equator, in the winter to when it reaches the Tropic of Capricorn it is overhead marking our shortest day in the northern hemisphere. The angle 23°26’ is due to the angle of the Earth rotation to its orbit around the Sun. This angle is what creates our seasonal changes.
Many of the prehistoric rings and henges have alignments to the solstices though there are difference of opinion as to which is more important, winter solstice or summer solstice. Often the people who built them would also look for alignments with the hill or mountains surrounding them.
Another phenomena visible from late May to early August are noctilucent clouds. These are high clouds where the ice in them catches the remaining sunlight from the setting Sun about 1-2 hours after sunset and the same before sunrise. These clouds appear to shine in the night sky. See Noctilucent cloud – Noctilucent cloud – Wikipedia
June 16th also marks the 63rd anniversary of the first woman to go into space, Valentina Tereshkova. She was originally a textile mill and tyre factory engineering worker, she was not a pilot but did take up parachuting in1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova
The Moon
June starts with the Moon just past full phase, with the new Moon starting on 15th June and reaching full phase again on 29th June. On the day of the solstice it will be at 1st Quarter.
Also see below as there is a possibility of see some really stunning combinations of Moon and planets.
The Planets
For those with a clear view to the western skies over 8th to 10th June at about 23:00 Jupiter can be see with Venus above it and Mercury towards the north west (right) below. Venus will be the brightest at -3.9 magnitude and Jupiter at -1.7. Mercury will be dimmer at +0.2 magnitude.
Then over 16th-17th June at around 22:30 the new Moon starts to be seen, on the 16th the very slim crescent Moon will be just above Mercury, on the 17th a slightly more pronounced crescent will be just below Venus with Jupiter to the down and right and Mercury further down the chain…
https://earthsky.org/tonight/venus-jupiter-conjunction-june-2026-charts-how-to-see/
Mars: A morning object but very low in the sky, only around 5º.
Saturn: At the start of June not well placed to be see.
Uranus and Neptune: Both are out of view this month.
The Constellations
High in the southern aspect of our skies will be Hercules with its keystone shaped central group of four stars. M13 lies between the two right hand stars and is a lovely object mentioned in last months article.
To its east will be a very bright star, Vega. This is part of the constellation Lyra, the harp. If you look at Lyra – Wikipedia then you can locate M57 the lovely ring nebula. This is the remains of an exploded stars and as the name suggest has the appearance of a ring.
Another bright star to the south of Vega is the star Altair in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle), then to the East of Vega is another bright star, Deneb, which lies in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). These three bright stars make triangle in the sky, often called the Summer Triangle. Cygnus Cygnus (constellation) is a beautiful cross shape, the extended neck of the swan points down towards the horizon. The head is marked by a nice double star Albireo.
If you sweep Cygnus with a pair of binoculars you will see it is dense withs cloud of stars, you are looking at the Milky Way into one of the arms of our galaxy.
https://starwalk.space/en/news/summer-triangle-asterism
For those with a DSLR camera or similar try setting it up on a tripod and with a standard lens set around 30-50mm take a 20 second exposure at about ISO1600-3600 and point it at this area around Cygnus. The image will reveal the clouds of stars in that region.
For those of you with a Dwarf 3 or SeeStar 50 or 30 stacked exposures can be made of the lanes in the Milky Way around Sadr the central star of Cygnus.
In and around the summer triangle are many deep sky objects well suited to the D3, SS30 and SS50, such as the Pelican & North America nebulae M27 (Dumbbell nebula) in Cygnus, the Ring Nebula in Lyra and M71 in Sagitta and Brocchi’s cluster in Vulpeca.
Clear Skies
Frank Dutton
Kings Lynn & District Astronomical Society.