{"id":525552,"date":"2026-06-30T09:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T09:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525552\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T09:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T09:19:13","slug":"the-sky-today-on-tuesday-june-30-find-distant-neptune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525552\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Tuesday, June 30: Find distant Neptune\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tVisible in the early-morning sky before dawn grows too bright, Neptune glows near a grouping of background stars in Pisces.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1471\" height=\"895\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Neptune-06302026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A simulated telescopic star chart showing Neptune's position in the constellation Pisces on June 30, 2026. Neptune is labeled in blue near the center of the field, close to a small grouping of stars. The bright star 44 Psc is labeled in the upper left, and a 1-degree scale bar appears at the bottom right. A north-east orientation arrow is shown in the upper left corner.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis chart shows the location of Neptune on June 30. Use 44 Piscium to guide you southwest toward a grouping of several background stars that stand just east of the ice giant\u2019s position. Credit: Alison Klesman (via TheSkyX)\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-26-to-july-3-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">June 29: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-monday-june-29-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June\u2019s Strawberry Moon shines<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Rising around 12:30 A.M. local daylight time, the distant planet Neptune lies in the constellation Pisces, not far from Saturn. By 3:30 A.M., the ice giant has reached an altitude of some 30\u00b0 in the southeast, offering excellent views in a still-dark sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, find Saturn, the brightest point of light in this region. From there, slide your gaze (through binoculars or a telescope, needed to see Neptune) about 7.4\u00b0 west, which will land you on the 6th-magnitude star 44 Piscium. Then look about 2\u00b0 southwest of this star, which will bring a group of some five stars into view, shaped like a carat pointing east. The brightest of the group is a 7th-magnitude sun; this morning Neptune is located some 20\u2019 southwest of this star, and about 8\u2019 from a fainter, 8th-magnitude field star. Shining at magnitude 7.8, Neptune fits right in with this grouping, but lies farther west than any of the stars. Its tiny disk spans 2\u201d and glows a grayish-blue \u2014 see if you can separate it from the pinprick lights of the stars.<\/p>\n<p>Sunrise: 5:35 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:33 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 9:31 P.M.<br \/>Moonset: 5:47 A.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (99%)<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 Visible in the early-morning sky before dawn grows too bright, Neptune glows near a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-525552","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\/525552","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=525552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}