Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to take another look at the night sky for the month of June this year, 2026. We’re going to concentrate on the constellations, the stars, but it is worth pointing out the planets at the beginning of the night. To the west will be Venus, Mercury and Jupiter. They are all very close to the horizon, so if you have trees or buildings on the horizon, they will get in the way.

If we go very quickly a little bit closer to the equator, the planets will be easier to see. We won’t go too far, just from 52 degrees north here in Ireland, down to about 37 degrees north in Spain. This is going to change the angle at which we see the ecliptic and that means it will change the angle at which we see the planets in the sky. This makes Jupiter and Venus more easily visible, but Mercury is still so low in the sky that by the time it becomes visible to the naked eye it’s still likely to be blocked out by trees and buildings. We do have more planets coming up in the morning and we will take a look at them once we get there, but before we do we’re going to take a look at those stars. We’ll come back to Ireland and we’re looking at the night of the 14th of June. This is the night of the New Moon, so the sky will be as dark as it can be.

To make sure that I’m not describing an overly misleading view of the sky, we’re going to start looking at a Bortle class 6 sky. This has just a little bit more light pollution, which is unfortunate. I wish I could remove light pollution to give a more realistic view of the sky but that wouldn’t be realistic. Most of us live in cities with at least some amount of light pollution. Even in a city, we’re coming up to 11 o’clock just as the sky is finally getting dark for summertime. Some of the most famous objects are visible early, for example the Summer Triangle is already nice and clear as the Sun sets, it’s fully above the horizon to the east because we’re right into the middle of summer. One of the brightest stars we’re seeing down in the south is Arcturus. Sirius isn’t up at the moment, the actual brightest star is besides the Sun. As we look around the sky, there are only a couple of bright stars, those in the Summer Triangle and Arcturus down towards the south.

This is early enough in the evening that not too many other stars have come out. Once we push ahead closer to darkness, to 11:30, more stars will emerge. We’re still not in total darkness, we won’t get total darkness this late in June this high on the Northern hemisphere, but this is pretty close. It’s at least dark enough to see more of the shape of Boötes, a kite shape starting with Arcturus. A couple of the stars in Virgo are visible, particularly Spica, as is the rough shape of Leo. The Plough or the Big Dipper is also out, nice and high in the sky. The handle of the Plough will arc to Arcturus and then you spike on to Spica. Despite being a bright and blue star, Spica can sometimes be a little bit tricky to find, it is often low in the sky. The summer triangle is definitely nice and clear in the extra darkness. Besides Deneb, other bits of Cygnus are visible, including Albireo. Albireo is a binary star and it’s a good target even with smaller telescopes. If we take a closer look, one star becomes two. Albireo is a binary star and it’s right in the middle of the summer triangle, just about visible with the naked eye from a city even with some sunset glow still in the sky.

Low due south is the curved shape of Serpens. Really only the western half is visible, Serpens Caput, the head of the snake. The other would arc over the other way towards Aquila, towards Altair, but not all the way. Ophiuchus would be rising up in the middle of this arc, with a few stars faintly visible. Scorpius is nice and clear below the arc of the snake as the Sun is going down, particularly the nice, red Antares. However, it is very low in the sky, if there were blockages like buildings or trees around you, then they would block Scorpius from view. This still leaves you with the higher in the sky constellations like Boötes and Ophiuchus. We’ll continue moving towards morning time, the sky will get a little bit darker. We’ll move a little bit further forward, coming up to our local midnight, which is a little bit after 1 o’clock in the morning. That gives us a much fuller view of the Plough or the Big Dipper. It also brings Cassiopeia higher into the sky, so Cassiopeia will get easier to see as the night gets later. There is almost a line of stars coming along under Cassiopeia, but that’s really several constellations. That’s really Pegasus moving into Andromeda and then Perseus. It’s not one big constellation, even though looking at the sky broadly it can almost seem like one. Those three constellations are usually connected or considered to be related to some degree.

Looking towards the north at local midnight, we’re still getting that glow over the northern horizon, but the sky is fairly dark towards the south, as dark as it’s going to get from a light polluted city at least. It won’t stay dark for long. Coming up to 3:30 in the morning and the sky is already fairly bright. The summer triangle is really coming up to the middle of the sky, and the square of Pegasus is above Saturn, with the eastern point of the square leading into Andromeda and then finishing off in Perseus. Perseus is very hard to see thanks to the glow of the Sun coming up. We should barely get a glimpse of Mars from Ireland. Just before the Sun actually rises, Mars and Saturn will be in the eastern sky. Neptune is roughly out in that direction as well, and we already saw Jupiter, Venus and Mercury at sunset. That’s most of the planets, but Uranus is much closer to being behind the Sun. Uranus’s superior conjunction with the Sun is around this time, so Uranus is going to be more difficult to see, but we do have most of the planets.

Mars is tricky from Ireland, but as I demonstrated for the planets in the evening, it’s going to be easier if you’re closer to the equator. You don’t have to be very much closer to the equator, just a little bit closer to the equator. Here in Ireland we’re pretty far from the equator, but from Spain Mars is much brighter, much easier to see, but still not particularly high in the sky. It is definitely a much more feasible target if you are just that little bit closer to the equator, which of course we’re not, so we will come back to here. As the Sun rises, Mars vanishes quickly. Saturn is one of the last things to go. Taking a quick look around the sky, we’ve also still got Vega in Lyra, another very bright star. Still not as bright as Sirius, Vega is not the brightest star in our sky, but Sirius just isn’t up at this time of the year. That’s the sky as it is in the city.

The night sky is brief, we’re not getting to see the stars for very long because we are in the summertime portion of the year. Higher on the northern hemisphere specifically, we’re going to have very short nights, but we can make those nights darker by traveling out to the countryside. Just past midnight in a bortle class 3 sky, we’ve still got a little sunlight in the sky, but we’ll have that all night long. We’ve got a much better view of the sky otherwise, we can see more of Scorpius in detail and even the triangular part of Libra, the top part of the scales. More of the shape of Virgo is visible and Leo, even though Leo is dipping down towards the sunset, getting towards that glow in the sky, by the time it actually gets dark.

All of the Plough is very clearly visible, you can even join it up to the other stars in Ursa Major, forming the shape of the Bear. From Arcturus, we can see the full kite shape of Boötes, it’s much easier to see from the countryside, and we can clearly see the curve of Corona Borealis. One of the stars in Corona Borealis was visible from even city skies next to Arcturus, but here we’re seeing the full curve of the crown. It’s also a lot easier to see the little trapezoidal shape of Hercules, that is the body of Hercules, between Corona Borealis and Vega in Lyra. We still have the Summer Triangle, nice and big, stretching across the sky and we can better see the tail end of the snake, Serpens Cauda, arcing up above Sagittarius towards Altair in Aquila. We’re catching a little bit of Sagittarius but of course, in a real city sky you don’t just have to worry about light pollution, you have to worry about all of the buildings and structures around you and that’s what’s going to block out Sagittarius and Scorpius. Even if you live in a city that doesn’t produce a lot of light pollution, the actual physical structure of the city can still block things out.

Next to the summer triangle, between Deneb and Altair, Delphinus is visible the dolphin, though it’s more of a diamond shape. We’ve also got a better view of Cassiopeia and more of that shape of Perseus is visible even though we’re not as close to sunrise. Even though Perseus isn’t as high, the atmosphere is still extincting the same amount of Perseus, but there’s not as much light pollution. Moving closer to sunrise, even with the glow of the Sun, minus the light pollution, we can still see that fin of Perseus transitioning into Andromeda and then into Pegasus with the square. Mars is visible, better than it would be from the city, but of course it’s still not going to get that high in the sky before it disappears.

That brings us through the night sky in the city and in a more rural sky. Not a perfect dark sky, nothing unachievable, just about dark enough to see the glow of the Milky Way, but still not a totally perfect sky. That’s how the sky is going to look while we’re still a little bit ahead of the solstice. During the solstice, parts of the sky toward the north will be brighter at midnight, but that should still give you a fairly clear idea of what is going to be where and what you can see over the coming weeks as we move through the middle of the summer, the shortest night of the year.

I hope that you get to see these constellations, these stars. I hope you get to see the sky with less light pollution than normal, wherever you are. If you can get to a darker sky, I hope you get the chance and I hope that you enjoyed this piece. If you did, please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.