What’s up in the night sky: June 2023

Welcome to our night sky monthly feature where we focus on easy and fun things to see in the night sky, mostly with just your eyes. This month: Evening and morning planets, and Mars and Venus get closer.

All month: Super bright Venus is in the west after sunset. Venus is the brightest star-like object in the night sky and hard to miss.

All month: Reddish Mars is relatively near the much brighter Venus in the evening west.

All month: Saturn is high in the predawn east, getting higher quickly as the weeks pass. 

All month: Very bright Jupiter is low in the predawn east getting higher and easier to see as the weeks pass.

June 4: Full Moon.

June 4: Super-bright Venus will be at its highest point above the western evening horizon before it begins dropping lower over the coming weeks. 

June 14: The crescent Moon is close to bright Jupiter in the predawn east, low to the horizon.

June 21: The crescent Moon is near super bright Venus in the evening west.

July 1: Low in the west after sunset, super bright Venus and much dimmer reddish Mars are at their closest in the night sky, within 3 1/2 degrees, before moving apart over the following weeks.

You can get weekly sky updates as well as weekly trivia and Random Space Facts in the What’s Up segment of Planetary Radio.