The summer space-watching season begins this month with the summer solstice on June 20.
The longest day of the year marks a shift in astronomical seasons, when the Summer Triangle of constellations will shine brightly and Mars and Saturn will be visible with the naked eye. On June 21, New Yorkers will be treated to a spectacular full moon, which the Algonquian people called the strawberry moon because it marked harvest time. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the moon will appear 10 moon-widths lower on the horizon than the sun, and will be its brightest just after 9 p.m.
The amber-tinted moon will appear very low and large in the sky, which happens about every 18 years.
“Low moons are spectacular,” said Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. “It's the lowest that it's going to be in the sky because it's opposite the sun, and most people get shocked when they see the moon close to the horizon.”
On other nights, stargazers can observe the Summer Triangle, an asterism — or pattern of stars — that includes three very bright stars: Vega from the Lyra constellation, Deneb from the Cygnus formation and Altair from the Aquila cluster. The formations are visible with the naked eye as bright pinpricks of twinkling lights.
The Milky Way, which is currently very high in the sky, is also visible to observers using binoculars or a telescope under a dark sky away from city lights.
“The plane of the Milky Way is where the highway of stars is, and where you have all of the gas and the dust that's left in the Milky Way,” Faherty said. “It makes these gorgeous lanes [with] tons of stars.”
New Yorkers who are disappointed they missed Manhattanhenge on May 28 and May 29 will have another chance on July 12 and July 13. But Faherty said there’s no need to wait until then. She said major crosstown streets like 14th and 42nd streets still get what she called “a Manhattanhenge effect” this month.
“It's [the sun] a little higher when it crosses the buildings, so it doesn't kiss the grid before it goes below, but it still lights up the New York City canyon of the concrete jungle so beautifully,” Faherty said. “You can get these epic sunset moments throughout New York City for the whole month of June.”
While there is plenty to check out in the cosmos this month, Faherty advised amateur astronomers to not believe the hype when it comes to a “parade of planets” on June 3. The alignment of six planets in the predawn hours – Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn – has yielded substantial news coverage and is a hot topic on astronomy message boards.
Faherty offered a reality check. The alignment will occur around 3 a.m., observing Neptune and Uranus will require a high-quality telescope, and both Mercury and Jupiter will be obscured by the sun’s glow. She said it’s better to wait until February, when the planets, plus Venus, will be aligned.
“The parade of planets is getting overplayed,” Faherty said.
