Night Skies of June - Harold Hester

Intro June 2025 (PDF)
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Credits
SOUTH AFRICAN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY

What’s Up – June 2025

Moon

Planets

Some bright stars in the evening sky

• Altair: white star, brightest star in Aquila
• Antares: red supergiant in Scorpius
• Arcturus: red giant in Boötes
• Betelgeuse: red supergiant in Orion
• Canopus: yellowish-white star in Carina
• Procyon: yellowish-white star in Canis Minor
• Regulus: blue-white star in Leo
• Rigel: blue supergiant in Orion
• Sirius: brightest star in the night sky, in Canis Major
• Spica: bluish-white star in Virgo
• The Pointers: Alpha and Beta Centauri

Winter solstice

The winter solstice occurs on the 21st of June at 04h21. This marks the (astronomical) beginning of winter on the southern hemisphere, but it also means that for us southern hemisphere folks the days are getting longer again

Fun facts

Winter is the best time to see the constellation Sagittarius. Its brightest stars look like a “teapot”. The centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is located near the boundary of Sagittarius, and a massive black hole can be found here. A worldwide network of radio telescopes, the Event Horizon Telescope, managed to take an image of this black hole (or rather of the matter falling on to it). 

Virgo is the second-largest constellation in the sky, after Hydra. It’s part of the zodiac, located between Leo and Libra . Virgo is often depicted as a maiden holding a sheaf of wheat, and is associated with fertility and agriculture in Greek mythology. The brightest star in Virgo is Spica. 

There are more than a million asteroids larger than 1 km between Mars and Jupiter. Still, a spaceship would be hard-pressed to hide in the asteroid belt – the average distance between asteroids is more than 900 000 km!