Star Points for June, 2007; by Curtis Roelle Star Globe This June is a good opportunity for viewing the brightest planets. In evening twilight after sunset glaring Venus can be seen high in the west. Early in the month much dimmer Mercury is low in the west to the lower right of Venus. By 09:15 p.m. EDT Mercury is less than ten degrees above the horizon. You'll need a clear west-northwestern horizon and using binoculars to scan near the horizon may help. The planet Saturn is visible to the unaided eye to the upper left of much brighter Venus and by 10:00 p.m. is 30 degrees above the horizon and slowly sinking. If you have trouble finding Saturn the moon will be around later to help on the 19th when Saturn can be spotted between the crescent moon and Venus. Finally, Jupiter rises as the sun sets in early June and is visible low in the southeast when twilight ends as it climbs upward into the night sky. Mark your calendar for the 29th when Venus and Saturn will be less than a degree apart. Small telescope users might be able to see both in the same field of view by inserting a low magnification eyepiece. During the month the two planets will have inched closer and closer together. Saturn is in western Leo. The 1st magnitude star Regulus (the lion's heart) is a little fainter than Saturn and is located to the planet's upper left as viewed with the unaided eye. Regulus is at the bottom of a crooked curve of stars that are in the rough shape of a backward question mark, or sickle, forming the lion's head and mane. They are fainter than Regulus and best seen when the moon is nowhere nearby. In June the open part of the question mark will be facing toward the horizon. Leo's rump is formed by a triangle of three stars above and to the left of the sickle. The star in the triangle farthest from the sickle is Denebola (the lion's tail). The Big Dipper asterism is so high in the sky that Alkaid, the star at the end of the handle, is nearly straight overhead. Following the curving "arch" of stars in the handle brings you to bright 1st magnitude Archturus. The star Archturus has a noticeable orange-ish or yellowish tint to it. If you have a pair of binoculars look exactly halfway between Denebola and Archurus for the 4th magnitude star Alpha Comae Bernenices. If you're pointed at the correct star you may see a small slightly fuzzy patch to its upper left. This patch of light is known as Messier 53, or simply M53. It is a type of star cluster known as a "globular" and was discovered in 1775. M53 is a massive conglomeration of as many as 100,000 stars in a ball 220 light-years across and some 58,000 light-years from us. Note that none of the stars are touching; there are large gaps between them. Remember the scale model discussed last month where a quarter coin represented the distance from the sun to Pluto? At that scale M53 would be a ball of stars 5.5 miles across located 1,500 miles away in Boulder, Colorado near Denver. If you're able to find M53 with binoculars and have access to a telescope try finding the globular cluster using a low magnification eyepiece. I had my first view of M53 using my 6- inch reflector at age 16. I logged it as being "very fuzzy and unresolvable." Some years later using a 20-inch telescope, whose larger mirror and higher light gathering ability permitted the use of higher magnifications, I saw a "Nice, rich globular" with "a broad central condensation" (195x) along with "Some chaotic chains of stars" (362x). Let me know if you have any luck viewing the Venus-Saturn conjunction on June 29th or observing the globular cluster M53.