wonders, such as one of the planet's dusky polar caps or the narrow Encke Gap in the A ring out beyond the wide Cassini Division. The only problem with these observations for viewers at mid-northern latitudes is the lowness of Saturn in the southern sky. The planet still floats just above the Teapot of Sagittarius. Asteroid 4 Vesta reaches opposition on June 19th and is not just visible all night long but is plainly visible with the naked eye at a reasonably dark location. This brightest of the asteroids reaches a peak magnitude of 5.3 this month, slightly brighter than it has been in decades or will be again until 2031. See page 48 for a finder chart and discussion. December solstice Uranus Mercury Venus Saturn Mars starts June less than two months away from its closest approach to Earth since 2003. How thrilling it is to see Mars brighten from magnitude -1.2 to -2.2 and swell from 15″ to more than 20″ wide in this one month. See the upcoming July issue for information on when and where to look for specific Martian surface and atmospheric features. Mars rises around midnight as June begins and around 10:30 p.m. as the month ends. But the planet slows its eastward motion in Capricornus and then on June 28th halts and begins westward (retrograde) motion. Sun Neptune Earth June solstice Mars ORBITS OF THE PLANETS The curved arrows show each planet's movement during June. The outer planets don't change position enough in a month to notice at this scale. DAWN EVENING UNTIL DAWN Sept. equinox March equinox Jupiter Neptune and Uranus get high enough to observe by morning twilight (see https://is.gd/urnep for a finder chart for these outer giants). SUN AND MOON The Sun reaches the June solstice at 6:07 a.m. EDT on June 21st, starting summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. The waning gibbous Moon is a little more than 3½° left or upper left of Saturn at dawn on June 1st and 2½° above Mars at dawn on June 3rd. The very thin waxing lunar crescent is almost 8° to the left of Mercury, very low in the west-northwest a mere half-hour after sunset on June 14th. Bring binoculars to see Mercury in conjunction with the Moon. The next two evenings the crescent Moon is 7½° lower right of Venus and then again 7½° upper left of Venus. The waxing gibbous Moon is less than 5° upper left of Jupiter at nightfall on June 23rd. The almost-full Moon is only about 1° from Saturn at nightfall on June 27th. On the final American evening of June, Mars and the waning gibbous moon rise about 4½° apart. ¢ FRED SCHAAF enjoyed an awesome, ultra-close conjunction of Mars and Saturn 40 years ago this month. Dusk, June 14 -15 June 22 - 24 June 26 -28 30 minutes after sunset Nightfall Nightfall Venus Pollux Castor 1° apart! Moon June 22 Moon June 15 ` Lib Moon June 27 Moon June 23 Moon June 24 Moon June 26 Saturn Jupiter _ Lib Procyon Moon June 14 Moon June 28 Mercury Looking West-Northwest Looking South, halfway up S A G I T TA R I U S Looking Southeast sk yandtelescope.com * J U N E 2 018 47https://www.is.gd/urnep http://www.skyandtelescope.com