FAS Starry Nights Podcast – May 2025
Starry Skies: What can we see in the night skies over East Dorset, Southern Wiltshire and West Hampshire during the month of June 2025.
Planets
Mars – Distinctly red, low in the Western sky.
Saturn – Just below the moon on 19th June
Venus – Very bright – Just below the moon, on the 22nd June – but you need to be up at 03:30!
Constellation of the Month is Ophiuchus — the Serpent Bearer. Ophiuchus is a large, ancient constellation visible mid-sky in the south during summer nights. In one myth, it represents the god of medicine, Asclepius, grasping a huge snake which appears in the sky to his left and right. Ophiuchus is home to numerous globular clusters; balls of thousands of stars orbiting our own Milky Way. Marked on our chart are Messier Objects M9, M1O, M12, M14, M19 and M107, all visible in small telescopes. Barnard’s Star, a faint red dwarf in Ophiuchus, at 5.96 light year away, is one of the closest and fastest-moving stars in the sky. In diameter, it is only slightly larger than Jupiter. You can only see it with a telescope. Voyager 1, one of the first objects to leave our Solar System is heading away from us in the direction of the star Rasalhague.
Podcast by Mark Hardaker and Steve Tonkin of Fordingbridge Astronomers, first broadcast on Forest FM in June 2025.