Planet Scenes June 2026
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June 19: Planets Separating in the Evening Venus is a temporary member of the Beehive Cluster, Jupiter is almost at the border between Gemini and Cancer, and Mercury stubbornly holds onto its evening apparition. |
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June 17: Lunar Occultation of Venus In mid-afternoon here in central Virginia, we were treated to a lunar occultation of Venus. Note how far apart they grew by evening! |
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June 16: Planets and Moon From a location in south central Pennsylvania, we see the very nice grouping of three planets and the crescent Moon over a distant ridgeline. |
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June 15: Planets and Moon We still experienced some clouds this evening but behind the clouds the sky was transparent and clear. The one day old Moon could just barely be seen over the horizon an hour after sunset; it will join the planets spectacularly over the next two evenings. Mercury continues to gain on Jupiter while Venus pulls away, toward the Beehive Cluster. |
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June 14: Planets Separating in the Evening The spacing between Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury is evening out now as Venus pulls away from Jupiter but Mercury continues to move eastward toward Jupiter. |
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June 10: Planets in the Evening As our luck would have it, we had clear skies for the entire first week of June, then on the dates of closest approach between Jupiter and Venus, it was cloudy, and now on the 10th we again were graced with clear skies :( The line between the pair was almost horizontal on the 7th, and now it is almost vertical. |
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June 7: Planets in the Evening The evening of June 7 featured several nice alignments of the planets that have been occupying Gemini for the last several weeks ~ Venus and Jupiter are equally high above the horizon and Mercury is very close to the star Epsilon Geminorum to the lower right of the Venus - Jupiter pair. |
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June 4: Planets in the Evening Every clear or even just semi-clear evening, I take a picture of the planets in case the weather isn't cooperating on the 8th and 9th (the dates of closest approach). Here we see the three planets from a vantage point in King George County, Virginia. |
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June 3: Planets in the Evening Jupiter and Venus continue to close the gap between them. Although it appears from night to night that Jupiter is sinking and Venus holding steady, the actual situation when referenced against the starry background, is that Venus is racing eastward along the ecliptic and Jupiter is moving slowly eastward, so that it is Venus that is overtaking Jupiter, not vice versa. |
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June 2: Planets in the Evening Three planets adorn the constellation Gemini in the west after sunset in early June. Mercury will continue to increase in elongation until June 15, while Venus and Jupiter will have their conjunction a week earlier on the 8th. |
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