I usually begin with the moon and planets because they are responsible for most of the action in the sky. A theme of my Sky Reports is that there is motion and change in the sky at multiple time levels that you can see and appreciate with just your eyes or binoculars, and that by looking up night-by-night you’re rewarded by noticing and then understanding these changes. My job is to guide you to know what to look for.

This week I’ll guide you to the planets Venus and Mars, both in the west in the evening sky. Venus is brilliant; Mars is a few degrees to its upper left and all week you’ll see both together in binoculars. Venus has been moving eastward at twice the rate of Mars (1° vs ½° per day), and they’ve been drawing closer week by week. You might wonder when Venus will pass Mars and how close they will come, but they won’t meet and there won’t be a conjunction. Here’s why.

Mars orbits outside the earth’s orbit, so its motion in our sky is a combination of its and the earth’s. Its own motion causes it to move eastward against the background stars, which it does steadily and w/o surprises, while a second motion, the earth’s motion around the sun, is causing Mars and everything else in the sky to move uniformly westward night by night, which is why we see different constellations in different seasons.

Venus is on an orbit that is inside the earth’s orbit, so it can never be opposite the sun in the sky. As we see it, it can be behind or in front of the sun or to the left (evening sky) or right (morning sky) – but at most by 47°. All spring it’s been coming toward us and appearing farther from the sun, but on June 4^th it reached its maximum angular distance and then began to move between the earth and sun. We’ll see it leave the evening sky surprisingly quickly this summer.

Note that Venus crosses the northern edge of the bright Beehive Star Cluster on the 13^th. Venus is so much brighter than the stars of the cluster that it overwhelms them and you’ll need binoculars.

So watch Venus continue to approach Mars until it runs out of steam, turns back, and they separate at a rate that increases rapidly. By your own observations, when will Venus come closest to Mars? It’s soon.

Saturn rises roughly an hour after midnight, and at sunrise it’s half-way up the southern sky. It’s in the middle of Aquarius.

Jupiter rises 2½ hours before the sun and is low in the east in morning twilight. The moon sits 4° from Jupiter on the morning of the 4^th.

Still visible is the supernova, or exploding star, that appeared abruptly last month in the bright galaxy M101, near the Big Dipper. It’s fading but should remain visible in a 6-inch amateur telescope. Google “supernova m101”.

Stellar Vista Observatory provides portable telescopes and tripod mounted binocular kits on loan for free to residents and visitors in Kane County. Enhance your enjoyment of the night sky! To learn more, request a loan, or attend one of SVO’s free public star parties for 2023, visit https://stellarvistaobservatory.org/ or drop in to the Kane County Office of Tourism.