Sky This Week - Thursday June 18 to Thursday June 25

The New Moon is Sunday June 21. Mercury is visible low in the twilight. On the 22nd the thin crescent Moon and Mercury are close. Four bright planets are visible in the morning skies. On the 19th the crescent Moon is near crescent Venus in the head of Taurus the Bull. Jupiter and Saturn are now rising before midnight and visible in the late evening. Comet C/2016 U6 can be see in binoculars.

The New Moon is Sunday June 21.

Evening civil twilight at 17:40 ACST on Monday, June 22 (30 minutes after sunset) looking west as seen from Adelaide. Mercury is low above the horizon just above the Moon. You will need a clear, level horizon to see the pair, and probably binoculars too.

Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia 30 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen.

Evening nautical twilight at 18:43 ACST on Wednesday, June 23 (90 minutes after sunset) looking west as seen from Adelaide. Comet C/2016 U6 can be see in binoculars almost on top of alpha Hydrae (Alphard) making it very easy to spot. For comet spotters charts see here.

Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen.

Evening sky at 23:00 ACST on Saturday, June 20 facing east as seen from Adelaide. Jupiter and Saturn are high above the Eastern horizon.

The insets shows the telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn at the same scale at 22:20 ACST (Jupiter, with Io coming out of occultation) and 23:00 ACST (Saturn).

Similar views will bee seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time, click to embiggen.

Morning sky on Friday, June 19 showing the eastern sky as seen from Adelaide at 6:23 am ACST (60 minutes before sunrise). Crescent Venus and and the crescent Moon are close. The inset show the telescopic view of Venus at this time.

Venus is in the Hyades cluster, which forms the head of Taurus the Bull.

Similar views will bee seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes before sunrise), click to embiggen.
Morning sky on Friday, June 19 showing the whole sky as seen from Adelaide at 6:23 am ACST (60 minutes before sunrise).

Four bright planets are visible stretching west to east. Jupiter, Saturn Mars and Venus. The Crescent Moon is close to Venus. Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (60 minutes before sunrise)  click to embiggen.

Mercury is low in the evening sky in the twilight this week, and is increasingly difficult to see. on the 22nd Mercury is low above the horizon just above the Moon. You will need a clear, level horizon to see the pair, and probably binoculars too.

Four bright planets grace the morning sky.

Venus  climbs higher in the morning skies close to the Hyades (the head of Taurus the Bull) and bright red Aldebaran (the eye of the Bull). on the 19th crescent Venus and the thin crescent Moon are close.

 Mars is visible high in the morning sky to the north, east of Jupiter and Saturn.
 
Jupiter is lowering in the morning sky and now can be seen in the evening sky. Jupiter and Saturn stay around a hand-span apart during the week.

Saturn is also lowering in the morning sky near Jupiter drawing away from Mars. It too is now visible in the evening skies.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what’s up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.

Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to current time.

Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.

Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/