{"id":501378,"date":"2026-06-29T17:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501378\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:17:13","slug":"the-sky-today-on-monday-june-29-junes-strawberry-moon-shines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501378\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Monday, June 29: June\u2019s Strawberry Moon shines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tA Full Strawberry Moon closes out the month of June on its second-to-last day, casting a bright, unmissable glow across the sky.\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe June Strawberry Full Moon occurs shortly before 8 P.M. EDT on June 29, 2026. Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n

June 28: Mercury stands still<\/a><\/p>\n

Full Moon occurs this evening at 7:57 P.M. EDT. The June Full Moon is also called the Strawberry Moon. According to NASA, this name comes from the Native American Algonquin tribes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rising shortly after sunset, the Full Moon will light the night from roughly dusk until dawn, dominating the constellation Sagittarius from within the Teapot asterism. It passes close to the 3rd-magnitude star Phi (\u03c6) Sagittarii, which marks where the top of the Teapot\u2019s handle joins with the body. From some parts of the world \u2014 South America and New Zealand \u2014 our satellite will occult nearby Nunki<\/a> (Sigma [\u03c3] Sgr), passing in front of the star and temporarily blocking it from view.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the Full Moon is up, it can be hard to observe any deep-sky objects, so tonight concentrate your view on our satellite. Its nearside is mottled light and dark \u2014 those dark regions are old lava plains called maria, Latin for seas. In the lunar south, Tycho Crater is extremely prominent, with long rays of ejected material that was flung out when the crater was formed arcing across the nearside. These rays reach as far from the crater as Mare Serenitatis in the northern hemisphere, whose dark landscape is bisected by a bright white streak of ejecta.<\/p>\n

Sunrise: 5:34 A.M.
Sunset: 8:33 P.M.
Moonrise: 8:51 P.M.
Moonset: 4:49 A.M.
Moon Phase: Full
*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

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. on June 30, 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

\"A<\/p>\n

\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)<\/p>\n

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

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 A Full Strawberry Moon closes out the month of June on its second-to-last day,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,12839,147,62517,392],"class_list":["post-501378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}