The June 2026 Night Sky – Portugal Resident

The elusive planet Mercury is at its greatest eastern elongation from the Sun on the 15^th, which means it will be seen low down in the west just after sunset. By the end of the month, it will be too close to the Sun to see.

The bright planet Venus is still in the evening sky and slowly moving away from the Sun. On June 8and 9, Venus is close to the gas giant planet Jupiter.

On the 16^th, the Moon will be seen close to Venus and on the 22^nd the Moon will be close to Jupiter.

The red planet Mars is a morning object, rising one hour before sunrise close to the Pleiades star cluster.

The ringed planet Saturn is also a morning object on the border of Cetus and Pisces. On the 10^th, the Moon will be close to this planet.

The planets Uranus and Neptune are not well visible this month.

There is a faint comet visible this month that is called 10P/Tempel (often called Tempel 2). It is in the constellation of Aquarius at magnitude of 7.8 approximately. It has an orbit of 5.36 years and is approximately 10 kms in diameter. It was discovered on July 4, 1873, by Wilhelm Tempel.

The spring constellation of Leo the Lion is now setting in the west, and over in the south, we can now see the summer constellation of Scorpius rising with its red giant star Antares. Close to Antares is the Globular Star Cluster M4. To the left of Scorpius, the summer constellation of Sagittarius is seen rising deep inside the summer Milky Way.

Going down in the southwest on June evenings is the bright star Spica in Virgo and the bright star Arcturus in Bootes.

We only have one meteor shower in June, which is the June Bootids. Next month, we have five more. This shower should be on June 22 but is normally not very active. On the years 1916, 1921, 1927 and 1998, it was better. This shower is dust from the tail of comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke with an orbit of 6.37 years.

The full Moon is at apogee this month, so it will be slightly smaller than normal.

The Moon is at last quarter on the 8^th, new on the 15^th, first quarter on the 21^st and full on June 29.

Read Clive Jackson’s last month’s article of The May 2026 Night Sky or the following month of July 2026 (soon).