The Night Sky - June 2025

May 21, 2025

by John and Peggy Hurley

This month, the planets are visible in both the morning and evening. Mercury will be low in the West North West in evening twilight. It will appear best near the middle of the month. Venus will be low in the East in the morning twilight all month. Mars will be high in the West during evening twilight and will set before 1am. Jupiter will be setting in the North West during evening twilight while Saturn will be rising in the East before 2am.

First Quarter Moon will take place on June 2 with the bright star, Spica (Virgo), just to the North on June 6. Full Moon will be June 11. This is sometimes called ‘the Trees Fully Leafed’. June 18 is the Last Quarter Moon and Saturn will be visible near each other in the morning sky.

June 20 is Summer Solstice. June 25 is New Moon and an hours old Moon may be visible after sunset.

On the 26th, Mercury with a thin crescent Moon, Pollux and Castor will be visible close to each other in the West during twilight. Mercury will be hardest to see. Castor and Pollux are bright stars in Gemini.

Stars and planets do look a bit different from each other when you are observing. Stars are a point of light so they appear to twinkle. Planets are spherical and reflect the light of the sun so they have a steady light. Sometimes, if the planet is low on the horizon it will appear to change colour or even size. This is caused by the amount of atmosphere between the object and observer.

Summer Solstice is a very important day in many cultures. For the Northern Hemisphere, it is when the sun appears to rise at its most northernly point. As a result, the sun appears to climb higher in the sky, there are more hours of sunlight and the sun’s rays are more intense.

The sun has not changed position, Earth’s relationship to it has changed. Due to the angle of the axis the Earth rotates on, the Northern Hemisphere is turned toward the sun in summer. The orbit of Earth is almost circular so the difference in distance to the Sun has no effect.

From the point of view of someone on Earth, the sun will appear to rise in the same spot for about three days and then go back toward the south (the same happens for sunset). To find the same spot again, you need only mark where you are observing from and where sunrise happened. This is what Stonehenge does in a very elaborate structure. Lines caused by glaciers in the Avenue from the River Avon may be why the henge was placed where it was.

Solstices could be the beginning or end of the year, depending on how you interpreted the daylight hours growing less.

In some cultures Solstice was Midsummer. The Norse held bonfires on hilltops to remember the god Baldr who was murdered on Midsummer.

Baldr was the much beloved son of Odin and Frigg. His mother had all the plants and animals promise not to hurt Baldr, so for many years the other gods would have fun throwing things at him just to watch how the objects avoided hitting him.

Mistletoe was not a plant of the ground and Frigg missed it when she was collecting promises. Loki learned of this and took a sprig of mistletoe to make a lance. He then gave this to Hodr (Baldr’s blind twin brother) to throw at Baldr. And this killed Baldr.