Beginner's Guide to the Night Sky
developed by Michael Rogers
Capital Area Astronomy Club
Mid-Michigan, USA

What to See the Week of June 11, 2000

Worth waking up for

My college-age daughter, bless her heart, hates to get up early in the morning. It must be a young-person thing. She (and my teen-aged son, as well) prefer to stay up late and sleep in the next day. I, on the other hand, as I have gotten older have flipped my sleep preferences. I'm pooped out at night but raring to go early in the morning. I try to avoid inflicting my habits on the children.

But it's worth the extra effort to roll out of bed this month and at least take a peek at Jupiter and Saturn, our two largest planets, as they rise in the east about an hour before dawn. You'll find two bright lights low above the horizon just before the sun comes up.

This is your last chance for decades to see these two planets so close together. If you are too sleepy to get up and look at them this week, wait until the end of the month and they will rise 2 1/2 hours before dawn. At the end of the month you can also see a thin crescent moon near the planets.