Skywatch Line for Wednesday and Thursday, June 7 and 8, 2023

This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Wednesday and Thursday, June 7 and 8, written by Alan French.

The Sun rises at 5:17 A.M. on Wednesday and sets at 8:31 P.M. On Thursday it rises at 5:17 and sets at 8:32. This Thursday has 7 ½ minutes more daylight than last Thursday.

The Moon was full last Saturday and is now moving toward last quarter. The waning gibbous Moon does not rise until after midnight. A 78% sunlit Moon rises at 00:23 Thursday morning. On Friday morning it rises at 00:56 and appears 68% in sunlight. It will reach last quarter next Saturday.

Venus continues to dominate the western sky as night falls, although its brightness has been diminished on recent nights by the wildfire smoke from Canada. The rising and setting Sun has also been very red.

Just before 10:00 P.M. Venus will be 18 degrees above the western horizon. Through a telescope it will appear 24.8 arcseconds in diameter and we will see just under one-half the sunlit face. The brightness of Venus, due to its highly reflective clouds, can make seeing the phase difficult, but the reduction in brightness from the wildfire smoke might make it easier to discern.

Fainter, reddish Mars is 8 degrees to the upper left of Mars, at the 10 o’clock position around 10 P.M. To estimate the distance, remember that your fist, held at arm’s length, spans 10 degrees across the knuckles.

Roughly between Venus and Mars is the Beehive, a large, loose cluster of stars. It is one of the nearest open clusters and, visible to the unaided eye, has been known since ancient times. (With the presence of the wildfire smoke, it may be difficult or impossible to spot now by eye.) When visible, it looks like a fuzzy spot to the eye.

The Beehive is very nice with even modest optical aid, and shows well in binoculars and spotting scopes. It is closer to Mars than Venus, and a little below an imaginary line connecting the two. The cluster spans 70 arcminutes, so it appears more than twice the apparent size of the Moon. If you have a spotting scope with a zoom lens, start with the lowest power. It provides the widest field of view, making it easier to spot the Beehive, and allows its entirety to fit in the view. Higher powers may show more stars, but clusters are often more impressive when framed by dark, relatively starless sky.