Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.
June 10: The Moon shines with Saturn
Look north after dark this evening to find the Little Dipper standing on its handle, its cup high over the horizon. The star at the end of that handle is Polaris, the North Star, marking the North Celestial Pole. Just beneath Polaris, about 4° to its southeast, is NGC 188, also known as the Polarissima Cluster, named for its proximity to the pole.
Spanning some 14’ on the sky, this 8th-magnitude group of stars is an open cluster that is several billion years old — making it one of the oldest open clusters in the Milky Way. Astronomers can’t quite agree on its age, with estimates ranging from 5 billion to 24 billion years old. Regardless of its age, scientists do agree it has likely survived so long thanks to its position high above the plane of the galaxy.
NGC 188 lies some 5,000 light-years away and is also cataloged as Caldwell 1, the first entry in Sir Patrick Moore’s Caldwell catalog of bright deep-sky objects. It looks lovely through most instruments, while larger scopes will resolve more of its glow into individual stars than smaller ones.
Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.
Sunset: 8:29 P.M.
Moonrise: 2:27 A.M.
Moonset: 4:47 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (13%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.
Return to the early-morning sky June 12 as the waning crescent Moon joins up with Mars in Aries. Now just 11% lit, the Moon sits almost directly above the Red Planet as they rise. Above both are the two bright stars of the Ram, Hamal and Sheratan. You may also be able to spot the Pleiades star cluster (M45) in Taurus, which lies to the lower left of Mars. These stars will quickly disappear as twilight grows, but you should be able to capture them early on through binoculars or even a telescope’s finder scope. This young cluster of stars sprawls across more than 100’ of sky, making it impossible to capture all its stars with high magnification.
And even high magnification will not net you any detail on Mars. The Red Planet currently lies some 201 million miles (323 million kilometers) from Earth and its disk appears only 4” across in the sky — too small to visually make out any surface features. The planet is still half a year away from its next opposition, which won’t occur until February 2027. For now, simply enjoy its noticeably orange-red hue, which comes through even when observing with the naked eye.
