Innehållsförteckning för June 2024 från BBC Sky at Night

June is the month of summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. On the 20th, the Sun reaches its most northerly point against the background stars. This key moment in our star's annual passage across the celestial sphere, as seen from Earth, has been celebrated by humans for thousands of years. We're marking the event on page 34, where Jamie Carter takes a look at 12 fascinating ancient sites around the world that align with the Sun at the solstice. High summer is, however, a challenging time for stargazing: it's a month without true astronomical darkness. Yet it's still worth looking up after our star has dipped below the horizon for the ethereal atmospheric feature of noctilucent clouds. These clouds, the highest in our atmosphere, remain illuminated by the Sun long…

Euclid on ice A layer of ice is clouding the vision of ESA's Euclid space telescope. The ice is very thin – around the same thickness as a strand of DNA – but it's enough to interfere with the telescope's primary mission to precisely map one third of the night sky. Mission control will now attempt to clear the ice using the spacecraft's heaters. The Milky Way's smallest satellite A star system recently found in orbit around our Galaxy is the faintest and lowestmass Milky Way satellite ever discovered. UMA3/U1 is 30,000 lightyears away in Ursa Major. The motions of the stars within the system suggest that it is dominated by dark matter – perhaps more so than any other system we currently know about. Exoplanet rainbow spied A glory…

World's largest camera complete The world's largest digital camera is built and ready to be installed on the Vera C Rubin telescope. It will take several months to fit the 3,000kg, 3,200-megapixel camera, with first light expected in August 2024. Once in place, it will image the whole sky every three nights, beginning in 2025. ESA bound for Enceladus ESA has unveiled plans for a new mission to Saturn's icy moon Enceladus in the early 2040s. The spacecraft will investigate the habitability of the ocean world and directly sample oceanic material either by landing on the surface or flying through one of the jets of water that have been seen erupting from the moon's surface. Our biggest black hole The largest stellar black hole ever discovered in the Milky Way…

On the 2 June 1979 episode of The Sky at Night, Patrick Moore was joined by another legendary BBC presenter, the weather forecaster Michael Fish. Having first joined the Met Office in 1962, the meteorologist had seen his field undergo huge changes, thanks to the rise of space-based weather satellites. Prior to the space age, meteorologists only had access to whatever measurements they could take from Earth. As these only recorded the local environment, creating a more global view was laborious and difficult. That changed when the first weather satellite, TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite-1), was launched by NASA on 1 April 1960. The mission lasted just 78 days, circling Earth 14 times a day in a circular orbit, but it gave the first-ever view of the clouds from above,…

Chinese Astronomy Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London 22 June, 10:30am This special planetarium show explores a range of topics in ancient and modern Chinese astronomy, including the Sun, Moon, stars and space exploration. Entry is £10 for adults, £5 for children. www.rmg.co.uk The Space Industry in Wales Trevithick Theatre, Queen's Buildings, Cardiff University, 6 June, 7:30pm Cardiff Astronomical Society hosts a talk by Neil Monteiro from Space Forge, a Cardiff-based company developing fully reusable satellites, whose motto is “The next industrial revolution isn't on Earth”. Free for members, non-members welcome (first visit free). www.cardiff-astronomical-society.co.uk Solar observing session Riverside car park, Newton Stewart, Dumfries and Galloway, 8 June, 10am This free public solar observing session is provided by Galloway Forest Astronomical Society. Solar telescopes will be available for use and there'll be…

All month 1 Saturday Today is the first and best opportunity to take this month's Deep-Sky Tour on page 56. This month we're looking at objects in southern Ophiuchus. 3 Monday A 14%-lit waning crescent Moon sits 3.3° northeast of Mars this morning, both visible together low in the east shortly after rising, around 03:30 BST (02:30 UT). 4 Tuesday Jupiter and Mercury appear 31 arcminutes apart this morning, their closest approach occurring at 11:20 BST (10:20 UT) when they will be less than 7 arcminutes apart under daylight conditions, 12° from the Sun. 5 Wednesday A slender 2%-lit waning crescent Moon sits 6° west-northwest of Jupiter this morning. 7 Friday Can you spot a slender 2%-lit waxing crescent Moon shortly after sunset, low above the northwest horizon? 8 Saturday This evening and tomorrow evening, the…

BEST TIME TO SEE: As stated There were a number of binocularand small-telescope-bright comets at the start of 2024. However, the comet highlight event for the year is yet to come, in the form of C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which reaches perihelion on 27 September. Around this time, C/2023 A3 is expected to brighten above the nakedeye threshold. Although it'll be badly placed for observing around perihelion from the UK, it's predicted to remain above the naked-eye threshold when it re-emerges into our evening sky during October. At this time, it may also have the potential to become something rather special – although, as ever with comets, there are no guarantees. If you're wondering where this comet is at present, it's located in western Virgo at the start of June, moving…

When to use this chart 1 June at 01:00 BST 15 June at 00:00 BST 30 June at 23.00 BST On other dates, stars will be in slightly different positions because of Earth's orbital motion. Stars that cross the sky will set in the west four minutes earlier each night. How to use this chart 1. Hold the chart so the direction you're facing is at the bottom. 2. The lower half of the chart shows the sky ahead of you. 3. The centre of the chart is the point directly over your head. Sunrise/sunset in June* Moonrise in June* *Times correct for the centre of the UK Lunar phases in June FREE BONUS CONTENT Paul and Pete's night-sky highlights Southern Hemisphere guide www.skyatnightmagazine.com/bonus-content…

1 NGC 6235 We start with NGC 6235, a mag. +8.9 globular cluster at the mid-point between mag. +4.2 44 Ophiuchi and mag. +4.5 Psi (ψ) Ophiuchi (off-chart). It also sits 1.2° northwest of mag. +5.6 24 Ophiuchi. This is a loose globular, 2 arcminutes across through a 150mm scope. The core has a definite elongation to it, but you won't be able to resolve any of the cluster's stars. The same is true for larger apertures, a 250mm instrument showing a mottled texture across NGC 6235’s brighter regions. A 300mm scope fares little better. As ever with globulars, use as high a power as the conditions will stand. □ SEEN IT 2 IC 4634 Head 2° east and 0.5° north to our next target, IC 4634, a double-shelled planetary…

CAUTION Take care when observing the Sun On the date of the June solstice each year (20 or 21 June), thousands gather at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England to watch the Sun rise just to the left of the Heel Stone. It's a view that humans may have been enjoying for 5,000 years, but there are far more recent constructions that align with the solstices too. Perhaps the most famous is in New York City, where the gridiron layout of its streets means that four times each year, people gather to watch the Sun ‘kiss the grid’, in what's known – in a tribute to England's neolithic monument – as Manhattanhenge or the Manhattan Solstice. Manhattanhenge describes four days when either the setting Sun or the rising Sun is aligned with…

Unseen Universe Caroline Harper Greenfinch £30 ∙ HB The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took around 20,000 people NASA/ESA/CSA/STSC/ALBERTO BOLATTO (UMD), GETTY 25 years to design and build. It's the largest telescope ever launched into space, weighing over six tonnes and costing 10 billion dollars. It finally launched on Christmas Day 2021 and reached Lagrange Point 2, its operational orbit, 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, a month later. It began returning data in July 2022. In Unseen Universe, Caroline Harper looks at the telescope itself, the mission so far, the discoveries it has made and the scientific questions it hopes to study. The book takes each of the mission's main science goals and explains why JWST's sensitivity to infrared is ideally suited to see through obscuring gas and dust to…

Charlie Hoy Astrophysicist “LISA, a future space-based gravitational wave observatory, could revolutionise our understanding of the Universe. With ever-improving detectors on Earth too, it's an exciting time.” Read more on page 28 Yvette Cook Eclipse chaser “Getting to experience a total solar eclipse and the glow of the Sun's corona is a magical event not to be missed.” Yvette describes seeing April's eclipse in Texas and how you can be in Spain for the next one, on page 60 Jamie Carter Astronomy writer “Seeing the sun ‘kiss the grid’ in New York has become a modernday pilgrimage. It pays to plan, as this Sunskyscraper alignment is getting ever more popular.” Jamie's guide to Manhattanhenge is on page 72…

Over the last year or so, images from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a population of ‘little red dots’ – faint objects that may well be the cores of galaxies, shining brightly thanks to what seem to be actively growing black holes at their centres. Understanding this early population is an important and urgent task for cosmologists, but there's a problem. When we look at sources this far away, we see only the most massive and brightest systems, while testing our theories means we want to see what's going on with normal, Milky Way-sized galaxies. This month's paper sets out to do just that, using a cunning technique using data from a different observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope. The team, led by Matthew Hayes in Stockholm, pointed the…

2024 SOLAR ECLIPSE SPECIAL  MESSAGE OF THE MONTH This month’s top prize: two Philip’s titles The ‘Message of the Month’ writer will receive a bundle of two top titles courtesy of astronomy publisher Philip’s: Nigel Henbest’s Stargazing 2024 and Robin Scagell’s Guide to the Northern Constellations Winner’s details will be passed on to Octopus Publishing to fulfil the prize Chasing totality We witnessed the 8 April eclipse from Sherbrooke Airport, Quebec, Canada. We’ve seen a number of total eclipses before, but this was by far the best! A large fall of snow left the air spectacularly clear. Being just off the eclipse centreline, with excellent weather prospects, our location had clearly caught the attention of the flying eclipse-chasing fraternity – more than 50 light aircraft flew in during the partial…

Universal Time (UT) and British Summer Time (BST) Universal Time (UT) is the standard time used by astronomers around the world. British Summer Time (BST) is one hour ahead of UT RA (Right ascension) and dec. (declination) These coordinates are the night sky's equivalent of longitude and latitude, describing where an object is on the celestial ‘globe’ Family friendly Objects marked with this icon are perfect for showing to children Naked eye Allow 20 minutes for your eyes to become dark-adapted Photo opp Use a CCD, planetary camera or standard DSLR Binoculars 10×50 recommended Small/ medium scope Reflector/SCT under 6 inches, refractor under 4 inches Large scope Reflector/SCT over 6 inches, refractor over 4 inches GETTING STARTED IN ASTRONOMY If you're new to astronomy, you'll find two essential reads on our website. Visit…

BEST TIME TO SEE: Morning of 4 June Mercury and Jupiter will be in conjunction on 4 June, when Jupiter will be shining at mag. –1.8 and Mercury at mag. –1.0. At this brightness, both planets would be easy to see if it wasn't for their very poor placement from the UK. They rise together on the morning of 4 June, just 30 minutes before the Sun. This places them in the bright dawn twilight. Given clear skies and a flat east-northeast horizon, it should be possible to see both using binoculars, or perhaps just with your eyes, but it will be tricky. If you do use binoculars, take great care to only observe before sunrise. Stop as soon as the Sun appears. If you spot the pair above the…

Lacus Mortis Type: Lunar lake Size: 150km Longitude/latitude: 27.3° E, 45.1° N Age: Older than 3.9 billion years Best time to see: Five days after new Moon (11 and 12 June) or four days after full Moon (26 and 27 June) Minimum equipment: 10x binoculars A cheery look at the Moon this month, as we hone in on the feature known as Lacus Mortis, the Lake of Death! It's a distinctive feature that's easily overlooked thanks to its position just to the north of Mare Serenitatis. With a diameter of 650km and coated with dark lava, Mare Serenitatis is very easy to identify. Immediately to the north of it is a region where lava spills around various elevated highland regions. This lava defines a 300km region called Lacus Somnorium, which…

As the glow of the Sun's corona cast down on me, I looked around and saw the joy on everyone's faces. We were transfixed by something familiar, looking unfamiliar. What should've been there, seemed not to be there – the only clue the Sun gave away was its pinkish-red chromosphere flaring out from behind the Moon. It's no wonder that the Choctaw Native Americans once thought that a black squirrel was eating the Sun. The clouds rolled in and blocked my view of the corona, leaving me to focus on my immediate surroundings. The hills had disappeared in the darkness, the usual insect and duck sounds had been replaced by the ‘wows’ of the crowd and the goosebumps on my arms weren't just caused by the chilly air. This was…

A clear sky is the key to photographing a Manhattanhenge sunset. Clouds will completely kill this spectacle, so check weather forecasts. Never look through the viewfinder when photographing a sunset – only look at the image on the camera's rear screen. You'll need to stand in the middle of the street, so care is of course needed. The best views looking west at the sunset are generally to be had in the eastern half of Manhattan, above 14th Street and below 155th Street, with prime spots including 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd and 57th Streets. The most popular places to watch Manhattanhenge include the junction of 14th Street and Third Avenue, Tudor City Bridge and Central Park's Great Lawn. If you want a good spot, it pays to get there early,…

Has JWST lived up to the hype? Yes! It was designed for a mission of 5–10 years, but the launch trajectory was so perfect, it has enough propellant for around 20 years. And it's a technological marvel – everything we hoped it would be and more. It's returning stunning images we've never been able to see before, revealing more about the Universe and our place in it. It's re-writing the textbooks for us. What are JWST's greatest discoveries so far? Where to start! A jet stream on Jupiter, travelling faster than a hurricane but never seen before. Methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star. Galaxies as massive as the Milky Way found in the infant Universe. The most distant…

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is on a five-year quest to make the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe. Though only half-way through its mission, astronomers have used its first year of data to begin answering one of astronomy's biggest questions: how fast is our Universe expanding? DESI has been mounted on the Nicholas U Mayall 4-Meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona since 2021. It can simultaneously measure the spectra of 5,000 nearby galaxies and distant quasars every 20 minutes, observing a total of 100,000 objects a night. This allows astronomers to work out the redshift of all the objects observed, or how much their light has been stretched by the Universe's expansion. As redshift is closely related to distance, the DESI team can use these…

Email your queries to scopedoctor@skyatnightmagazine.com I have an antique 5-inch Alvan refractor from 1881. Can you suggest a practical replacement that's also nice to look at? CHUCK FAUSEL Alvan Clark produced many fine telescopes, including the Victorian-era 24-inch Clark refractor at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. However, the company also produced telescopes for amateur use, like the 5-inch version you own. These are indeed lovely instruments to look at, but well-made modern interpretations of these refractors perform better on the night sky – although they certainly lack the character of the telescopes made around the 1880s. Luckily, it's still possible to purchase fine optics housed in stunningly beautiful optical tubes, but they are not, of course, a low-cost option. We would recommend that you speak to Mark Turner at…

On Thursday 20 June, at 21:51 BST, the summer solstice will occur in the Northern Hemisphere. Solstices (meaning ‘the Sun standing still’) mark the two longest days of the year – 20 or 21 June in the Northern Hemisphere, 21 or 22 December in the Southern Hemisphere – when the Sun is furthest north or south of the equator and highest in the sky at midday. Celebrated by cultures on either side of the equator for thousands of years, a summer solstice is when that hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun, a by-product of Earth's rotational axis being tilted by 23.4˚. As well as being an important marker of Earth's journey around the Sun, the summer solstice has real-world consequences, marking a period of the most sunlight in a day…

BBC Sky at Night MAGAZINE 16-PAGE CENTRE PULLOUT NIGHT SHINE Look out for curious shimmering displays as noctilucent cloud season begins A COMET IN TWILIGHT C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS skims the western horizon DEEP-SKY TOUR Hunt for glorious globulars around southern Ophiuchus About the writers Astronomy expert Pete Lawrence is a skilled astro imager and a presenter on The Sky at Night monthly on BBC Four Steve Tonkin is a binocular observer. Find his tour of the best sights for both eyes on page 54 Also on view this month… ✦ Spica in daylight ✦ A thin Moon meets Jupiter ✦ Re-emerging planets ✦ The Moon's Lake of Death Red light friendly To preserve your night vision, this Sky Guide can be read using a red light under dark skies Get…

The next total solar eclipse is in Europe on 12 August 2026. Starting in North America, it will reach its tipping point just off the coast of Iceland at 17:43 (local time) with totality lasting two minutes 18 seconds. It will then sweep southeastwards, bringing a 90-96 per cent partial eclipse to the UK after 19:00 (local time) and making landfall in Spain near to Gijón at 20:27 (local time). Moving across northern Spain to the Costa Dorada, with those on the island of Mallorca seeing totality followed by a partially eclipsed Sun setting into the sea. This will be particularly special because of how low the Sun will be in the sky, but viewers will need to be aware of hills blocking the view. Recommended viewing spots for clearer…

29 March 1652 (OS)* Known as ‘Mirk Monday’, mainland Scotland's last total eclipse was also visible from northeast England. This took place during the English Civil War, and both sides claimed the eclipse as a favourable omen. 22 April 1715 (OS) London's last total eclipse, and the last British total eclipse to enjoy good weather. Edmond Halley, the second Astronomer Royal, produced two famous maps of the eclipse track. Before the eclipse, he predicted the track of totality and distributed the map widely. Afterwards, he asked men of learning (members of the clergy, for example) who lived close to the edge of the totality track to tell him if they had seen a partial or a total eclipse. This early citizen science campaign allowed him to produce a more accurate…

PHOTO OF THE MONTH FREE BONUS CONTENT Find our extended Gallery at www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ bonus-content Solar eclipse Ethan Dugar, Newport, Arizona, USA, 8 April 2024 Ethan says: “This composite image reveals the Sun's mesmerising occlusion by the Moon, culminating in the breathtaking moment of totality, from its partial phases to the emergence of Baily's beads.” Equipment: Canon EOS Rebel T4i camera, StellarVue ST80ST2 refractor, ZWO AM3 mount and TC40 tripod Exposure: 15 exposures, 1/4,000” to 4” Software: Photoshop Ethan's top tips: “Automate your process to streamline your workflow, allowing you to focus on the experience rather than the technicalities. Dedicate time to practice runs, performing daytime polar alignments and determining optimal exposures for different phases. Stay flexible, as the weather is always unpredictable, and be prepared to change locations to find…

1. Celestron 34-inch tripod bag Price £99 ∙ Supplier Clifton Cameras www.cliftoncameras.co.uk Astronomy setups can be portable, but that doesn't always mean they're simple to transport. A tripod bag can make the job easier, for those grab-and-go clear nights. This water-resistant version holds tripods up to 34 inches long and has a PVC-reinforced base. 2 National Geographic Mars illuminated globe, 30cm Price £109.99 ∙ Supplier John Lewis www.johnlewis.com A unique and striking take on traditional Earth globes, this illuminated Mars will stand out in any room. Standing at 55cm high, the 30cm-diameter sphere is adorned with the features of our rusty-red neighbour. 3 Starlight Xpress mini filter wheel with OAG Price £299 ∙ Supplier Tring Astronomy Centre www.tringastro.co.uk ADVANCED A compact size for portable setups, this filter wheel weighs only…

When to use this chart 1 June 00:00 AEST (31 May, 14:00 UT) 15 June 23:00 AEST (13:00 UT) 30 June 22:00 AEST (12:00 UT) The chart accurately matches the sky on the dates and times shown for Sydney, Australia. The sky is different at other times as the stars crossing it set four minutes earlier each night. JUNE HIGHLIGHTS On 27 June, the eastern Australian mainland will see an occultation of Saturn by the Moon. The rising Moon conceals the planet, with great views of its reappearance on the dark limb. Times are: Melbourne 23:32, Canberra 23:39, Sydney 23:41, Brisbane 23:47 (all AEST) and Adelaide 23:07 (ACST). Hobart sees a near miss. Although visible through binoculars, small telescopes will show the rings slowly being revealed, with Saturn's bright moon…