DWU Astronomy

06/04/2026

Tonight, there is a good chance for aurora! We do need clear northern skies, which unfortunately are not in the forecast. But one can dream. And as a reminder, not all aurora is visible to the naked eye. If you do have clear skies at your location, put your phone in night mode and take a 2-5 second exposure. If the aurora are active, they will show up in your photo.

This month, we have a treat in the evening skies from June 8-18. Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury will all be close together during those days. And the Moon will be passing through. The picture below is for June 8th at about 10:30 pm. Be very careful about viewing Mercury! Be sure the sun has gone down below the horizon before trying to find this small dot of light! Jupiter and Venus will be the brightest objects in the sky. You can’t miss them!

Don’t forget our “Starry Saturdays” planetarium show. We have three shows planned on the summer solstice on June 20.

06/04/2026

Aurora alert for June 4th!

05/21/2026

05/21/2026

Tonight and Saturday night look like good nights to view Mercury, Venus and Jupiter.

The moon glows with the Beehive Cluster on May 21, as a trio of planets form up in the evening sky.

05/11/2026

Not much is happening in the night sky during the month of May. With summer solstice approaching, the sky isn’t “dark” until after 10:00 pm. Here are a couple of highlights if you are out and about late in the evening.

Venus will be the brightest “star” in the western sky, hovering above the horizon in the west/northwest.

Jupiter is still hanging out below Castor and Pollux, the twin stars of Gemini. Look about 30°-40° up from the western horizon. It will be the second brightest “star” (after Venus) in the night sky.

For the morning risers:

Both Saturn and Mars are beginning to rise above the predawn eastern horizon. See picture.

Also shown in the picture is where to look for two meteor showers: (1) The Arietids meteor shower (left and up from Mars) is known as the “most active daytime meteor shower”. According to earthsky.org, this shower is predicted to have 60 meteors per hour. You just need to catch them before the sun comes up! (2) The second show is the Eta-Aquariids shower (up and to the right of Saturn). This meteor shower is caused by the leftovers of Halley’s comet as it travels around the sun.

Our next Starry Saturday is June 20, 2026. Join me as I highlight the summer constellations and binocular-friendly deep sky objects.

04/21/2026

Chance of aurora tonight!

04/19/2026

Next week (April 22-24), Uranus and Venus will be hanging out in the western sky together. With binoculars you can see Uranus. Venus will be the brightest object in western sky. See picture.

Jupiter is always on display in the evening sky. Just look straight up and it will be the brightest object.

04/16/2026

Aurora Alert! Possible aurora this Friday and Saturday night.

02/12/2026

Sorry for the late notice, but Farney and I will be getting the telescopes out tonight, Thursday Feb 12. On the agenda is the Orion Nebula, Mercury, Saturn, and Jupiter. We might be able to see Uranus and Neptune plus some other deep sky objects. We’ll start at 6:30 on the field south of the Corrigan Health Sciences Center.