The southern skies welcome the brightest section of the Milky Way sliding up from the horizon, accompanied by the pattern of stars called “the Teapot”, with a triangular lid, a pot underneath, and a handle attached on the left, with the spout on the right. The bright portion of the Milky Way sits at the center of our galaxy.
Tuesday:
Tomorrow’s Summer Solstice might have you thinking that the Sun is overhead on the first day of Summer. It is true that the Sun reaches its highest point at our northern latitude is just shy of 70 degrees above the southern horizon near 1:00 PM, but you have to travel south to the line on the globe marked the Tropic of Cancer, the northern-most location to see the Sun directly overhead.
Wednesday:
The Summer Solstice marks the start of calendar Summer in the northern hemisphere at 10:58 AM this morning. Posing for pictures this evening to mark the change in seasons, a waxing Crescent Moon joins the planet Venus in the west-northwest after 9 o’clock or so, getting lower but more spectacular to view by 10 o’clock.