THE SKY THIS JUNE: SUMMER CONSTELLATIONS STILL VISIBLE AT DUSK

There is no stopping them now. The summer constellations are rising in the east at sunset as they begin their march across the sky.

Even though the stars rise earlier and earlier each evening, sunset occurs later and later each evening canceling their apparent progress. Thus, we tend to see the same stars in the same positions each night at dusk. This is about to change, however, as the summer solstice occurs on June 20 at 9:48 p.m. EDT. Solstice actually means "to stand still" which is what the sun appears to do on a star chart as it reaches its highest excursion north of the equator. We call this event the first day of summer. From now on the days will actually be shorter even as they get hotter.

If you have ever had trouble finding the Big Dipper then now is a good time to look. Just look straight up and to the north a little bit and there it is, upside down. The second star from the end of the handle is actually a double star with names Mizar and Alcor. With a good clear night and good vision, the two stars can be easily split.

The two stars at the end of the dipper actually point to a nondescript star near the north celestial pole. Because of its unique position, this star appears to hover above the Earth's north pole and has the deserving name of the North Star.

If you follow the curve of the handle of the big dipper around, you will come to a bright red star just south of overhead with the name of Arcturus. Its red color implies it is cooler than our sun, but its brightness implies it must be bigger. It is in fact almost 300 times larger than our sun.

Just to the east of Arcturus is a small semi circle shaped constellation called the Corona Borealis or northern crown. The next constellation east is mighty Hercules and then the bright star Vega locates the constellation of Lyra. Far to the south, near the horizon, the constellation Scorpius begins its climb up with another red star, Antares, acting as the scorpion's heart.

There is only one planet that can be easily seen at dusk. Mercury is one of the more difficult naked eye planets to see because it never gets very far from the Sun. This month on the ninth, Mercury is farthest from the Sun during this cycle of its orbit. It is fainter than the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn but can be seen low in the west northwest about one hour after sunset.

Jupiter and Saturn only reveal themselves to the early risers this summer. At first just beating the Sun up, they rise two and a half hours earlier at month's end. On the morning of the 28th, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn make a nice threesome in the east at sunrise.

If you still rely on a sundial to tell the time, then on the 12th the sundial will read the actual time so you can align your sundial until it displays the setting on your watch. Since the Earth's orbit is slightly oval, the length of the day varies about 15 minutes faster or slower than average throughout the year and so sundials will normally be off that amount.

Communities all across the world are realizing that dark skies are a natural resource that is not renewable. Once dark skies are lost to city, bridge, and billboard lights they will be lost forever. If you want to help inform people about astronomy friendly lighting, check out the web page at http://www.darkskies.com.

Many national and state forest regions are adopting strict lighting policies for the surrounding region. Should we? Don't all natural resources deserve our protection?