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.
Thursday:
The Crescent Moon continues to grow in the western twilight. By 10 o’clock, the last of the twilight gives way to the stars, including the realtively bright star see to the left of the Moon, Regulus, the “heart” of Leo, the Lion. Looking below and a bit right of the Moon, the slowly fading Mars completes an astronomical triangle of sorts.