Monday 5th to Sunday 11th June 2023
The Moon will be just past its full phase, so you could observe it becoming a gibbous and then quarter moon during the course of the week, but you'd need to be an early riser as it doesn't pop up above the south eastern horizon until the early hours of the morning.
Alternatively, Venus and Mars will still be easy to spot just after dark if you look to the west. Venus was recently at its greatest elongation, which is as far as it ever appears to get from the Sun, about 45 degrees away from it.
Of course, with the Moon conveniently out of the way in the late evening sky, it is an ideal opportunity to go hunting for those faint deep sky objects with your telescope.
One good example is the planetary nebula known as the Dumbbell Nebula or M27 in the Charles Messier catalogue. If you look towards the east around 11pm, M27 will be located between the bright stars Altair and Vega. The nebula has a magnitude of around 7.5 so a telescope will definitely be needed.
Nebulas (or areas of cloudy gasses) are often associated with the birth of new stars, but these are technically called emission nebulas that emit light from their heavily ionized gas. A planetary nebula like M27 is made from the gas ejected by a dying red giant star. Nothing to do with planets at all or the creation of new stars, but early astronomers with basic telescopes used to think they were planets because they were small and round!
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2023
www.starsoversomerset.com
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