The Night Sky in June 2026
Venus and Jupiter are the ‘evening stars’ appearing in the northwest soon after sunset. Silver Venus is below golden Jupiter at first, setting soon after 7 pm while Jupiter sets around 8. Venus moves higher in the sky night-to-night while Jupiter slips lower. Around the 10th they will be just 1.6°, three full-moon widths, apart, setting around 7:40. On the 11th they will be level. After that Venus moves higher than Jupiter. The Moon will be near Jupiter on the 17th and above Venus on the 18th.
There is a chance of seeing Venus by eye in the daytime on the afternoon of June 18. Around 3:30, Venus will be due north and about 4°, eight full-moon widths, left of the thin crescent Moon, low in the north sky.
At the beginning of the month Mercury begins an evening sky appearance. A line through Jupiter and Venus finds Mercury near the horizon. It is fainter than Jupiter but the brightest ‘star’ in that part of the sky. It sets an hour after the Sun at the beginning of the month and around 6:40 mid-month, so isn’t on the chart. Mercury moves up the sky night-to-night but fades as more of its sunlit side is turned away from us. It is left of Jupiter and a bit lower in the sky till the end of the month.
Sirius, the brightest true star, appears in the west as the sky darkens. It sets in the southwest around 9 pm, mid-month, twinkling like a diamond. Canopus, the second brightest true star, is in the southwest. Canopus is a 'circumpolar' star. It circles the South Celestial Pole (SCP on the chart) clockwise but never sets from Aotearoa NZ except for the most northern places. Around 1 a.m. it will be near the southern horizon, twinkling colourfully.
Arcturus is the brightest star in the north sky. Its orange light is often split into red and green when it is low in the sky. It sets in the northwest in the morning hours. Arcturus is relatively close at 37 light-years* from the Sun. It appears bright because it is 170 times brighter than the Sun.
Crux, the Southern Cross, is south of the zenith. Beside it, and brighter, are Beta and Alpha Centauri, often called 'The Pointers' because they point at Crux. Alpha Centauri is the closest naked-eye star, 4.3 light-years away. Beta Centauri and three of the four brightest stars in Crux are hot, extremely bright blue-giant stars hundreds of light years away.
Orange Antares, high in the eastern sky, marks the body of Scorpius the scorpion. It is a red giant star: 600 light years away and 19 000 times brighter than the sun. The scorpion's tail, upside down, curves off to the right. Below Scorpius is Sagittarius, its brighter stars making 'the teapot'.
The Milky Way is brightest and broadest in the southeast toward Scorpius and Sagittarius. It remains bright but narrower through Crux and Carina then fades in the western sky. The Milky Way is our edgewise view of the galaxy, the pancake of billions of stars of which the sun is just one. The thick hub of the galaxy, 27 000 light years away, is in Sagittarius. A scan along the Milky Way with binoculars will find many clusters of stars and some glowing gas clouds. Relatively nearby dark clouds of dust and gas look like holes and slots in the Milky Way. The dust, more like smoke, mostly comes from red-giant stars like Antares. These clouds eventually coalesce into new stars.
The Clouds of Magellan, LMC and SMC, in the lower southern sky, are luminous patches easily seen by eye in a dark sky. They are two small galaxies about 160 000 and 200 000 light years away. They are much smaller than our galaxy but still contain billions of stars.
Saturn rises due east around 2:30 a.m. at the beginning of the month and around 1 a.m. at the end. It is a medium-bright cream-coloured ‘star’ in an empty region of sky. By dawn it is midway up the north sky. Mars, fainter than Saturn and orange red, rises around 5 a.m. through the month.
*A light-year (l.y.) is the distance that light travels in one year: nearly 10 million million km or 10^13 km. Sunlight takes eight minutes to get here; moonlight about one second. Sunlight reaches Neptune, the outermost major planet, in four hours. It takes sunlight four years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
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