Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 15, 2023

Mercury brightens this week but remains lost in the glow of sunrise. It is best seen 30 or 40 minutes before sunrise, well to the lower left of brighter Jupiter.

Venus is the brilliant “Evening Star” in the west from twilight into late evening. It’s not as high in the dusk as it was a couple weeks ago, but it doesn’t set until more than an hour after full dark. In a telescope Venus is a thick crescent, dazzlingly white until it’s lost from sight in mid- to late July.

Mars glows weakly to Venus’s upper left. In a telescope Mars is just a tiny little blob since it’s on the far side of its orbit from us.

Jupiter shines low in the east before and during early dawn.

Saturn (magnitude +0.9, in dim Aquarius) is nicely up in the southeast before dawn.

  2023, The Sky: Planets in mid-June