Catch bright spots in the light night sky.

Byline: WITH DAVID WARRINGTON Stargazing

JUNE is the month when there are no actual night conditions and there are no truly astronomically dark skies to experience.

The Sun reaches a high point in the sky, takes a long time to set and when it does set it only dips slightly below the northern horizon giving us a perpetual twilight.

Twlight persists from sunset to sunrise and, even in a usually dark location in the countryside, a deep blue twilight hue can still be visible low down in the north even at midnight.

The Summer Solstice occurs on June 20, with the sun rising at 4.30am and setting past 10pm.

All in all, astronomy and stargazing does become a bit trickier at this time of year.

But there is still lots to see. At the beginning of June, three planets will still be visible.

Low in the southern sky, there is a good grouping of Mars, Saturn and the bright star Antares.

On June 17, the waxing gibbous Moon will appear close by this group.

Although Mars is just past its best, it will still show a good sized disc to telescope observers.

Mars is only prominent at opposition every second year due to its orbit around the Sun relative to the Earth's.

At close approach, stunning images can be taken by instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, showing fine detail on the surface and prominent Martian atmospheric clouds.

Jupiter is bowing out this month after its long reign dominating in the evening skies. By the end of June it is setting at midnight.

The first quarter moon will make a fine close pairing with Jupiter on the evening of June 11.

June usually bring us the start of several displays of high-altitude noctilucent clouds, which are usually seen about an hour or so after sunset and before sunrise.

The full moon also occurs on June 20, so it is a summer solstice moon.

Before the moon approaches full, the midnight sky in the east has all the summer constellations on display. Under clear skies, away from streetlights, you might start to glimpse the milkyway.

The asterism of the summer triangle is gradually becoming well placed and is comprised of three bright stars (Altair, Deneb and Vega) forming a large triangle in the sky.

While these three stars might appear to be of similar brightness, they are actually very different distances away.

Altair is a relatively close neighbour of our Sun, being only 17 light years away.

Vega is a bit further away at 25 light years and still part of our local stellar neighbourhood.

Deneb though is estimated to be more than 3000 light years distant.

This means that the light we see from this star started its journey towards us during the time of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

CAPTION(S):

SKY LIGHTS Saturn, Antares and Mars can be seen in June