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EmailJune Nights Out
June 4 The Moon is full at 7:12 a.m. eastern daylight time (EDT). A partial lunar eclipse favors viewers in Hawaii, for whom the Moon is high in the sky as it moves through Earth’s shadow. At maximum more than a third of the Moon’s diameter is immersed in the dark umbral shadow. The farther east one goes, the less there is to see, because the Moon sets before the eclipse can run its course.
June 5 A transit of Venus occurs (see Features).
June 11 The Moon wanes to last quarter at 6:41 a.m. EDT. 12 Venus rises only a half hour before the Sun (as seen from near latitude 40 degrees north), but it’s climbing higher each morning, to shine prominently as the “morning star” from mid-July through late fall.
June 17 Low on the east-northeast horizon about a half hour before sunrise is a hairline crescent Moon, and just about a degree to its right is Jupiter. Venus is situated about 8 degrees below and to the left of the pair.
June 19 The Moon is new at 11:02 a.m. EDT. 20 At 7:09 p.m. EDT, the Sun arrives farthest north of the celestial equator (Earth’s equator projected onto the heav-ens). With this solstice summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere and winter begins in the Southern Hemisphere.
June 21 About an hour after sunset, Mercury sits low above the west-northwest horizon, about 8 degrees above and to the right of the slender crescent Moon. Above and to the planet’s right are Pol-lux and Castor, the stars that mark the heads of Gemini, the Twins.
June 26 The Moon waxes to first quarter at 11:30 p.m. EDT. Yellow-orange Mars shines above and well to the right of the Moon.
June 27 At dusk the gibbous Moon forms a broad triangle with Saturn, about 8 degrees above and left, and the bluish star Spica, about 5 degrees to Saturn’s
