{"id":499010,"date":"2026-06-14T09:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499010\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T09:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:35:11","slug":"the-sky-today-on-sunday-june-14-irene-nears-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499010\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Sunday, June 14: Irene nears opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tAsteroid Irene is nearly at at opposition and high in the south late tonight and overnight, near the center of the Milky Way.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1082\" height=\"892\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Irene06142026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A simulated night sky looking south on June 14, 2026, at 11 P.M. Asteroid Irene is marked with a red dashed indicator near the globular cluster NGC 6401, shown in a blue dashed box. The bright orange-red star Antares is visible in the upper right, and the faint glow of the Milky Way stretches across the left side of the frame.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAsteroid Irene floats amid the crowded plane of the Milky Way in Ophiuchus. Even if you have trouble spotting the asteroid, try for nearby globular cluster 6401 instead. Credit: Stellarium\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-june-12-to-19-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">June 13: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-saturday-june-13-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Catch Comet 220P\/McNaught<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Asteroid 14 Irene reaches opposition at 6 A.M. EDT tomorrow morning, making now a great time to catch it. Glowing at mid-9th-magnitude, Irene is already 20\u00b0 high in the south an hour before midnight and stands highest around 1 A.M. local daylight time. It\u2019s located in Ophiuchus, near the plane of our galaxy, where you\u2019ll also find rich clusters and numerous nebulae. It\u2019s about 3.6\u00b0 northeast of 3rd-magnitude Theta (\u03b8) Ophiuchi. If you can spot bright orange-red Antares, look to the region left of this standout star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/discover-deep-sky-gems-in-ophiuchus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Discover deep-sky gems in Ophiuchus<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not far from Irene\u2019s position is the compact globular cluster NGC 6401, which glows at roughly the same magnitude as the asteroid. You\u2019ll find it just 1.6\u00b0 southeast of Irene\u2019s position, or 3.9\u00b0 east-northeast of Theta Oph. Even if you have trouble spotting Irene against the crowded background stars, you should be able to pick up the globular much more easily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:30 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 4:31 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 8:41 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: New<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Asteroid Irene is nearly at at opposition and high in the south late tonight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-499010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}