June Night Sky

June is the month of long days and short nights, and this is especially true for dark sky observing. You can look for faint objects this month, but only near the zenith within an hour or so of midnight.
The planets offer better prospects. Saturn can be seen low in the south for much of the night, glowing with a steady light just above the distinctive tail of Scorpio.
But Jupiter and Venus provide the main interest. Jupiter is coming to the end of its apparition this time round as it heads towards the back of the sun, and Venus is near its maximum eastern elongation. As the month begins, they are the first objects coming into view in the west as dusk falls, about the breadth of a hand at arms length apart. But as the month progresses, they get closer and closer on each successive evening, though
also lower in the sky, until 30 June, when they will be just 0.3 degrees apart, less than the apparent diameter of the moon. This should be an impressive sight with the naked eye, or in binoculars, or in a telescope where the 2 planets will be in the same field of view at low or medium power. Jupiter is actually 10 times further away; we can wonder if any creature there is looking back at the corresponding conjunction of venus and earth!