Home > Constellations, Mythology, Observing, Star Cluster > 06/12/2023 – Ephemeris -Finding Hercules among the stars

06/12/2023 – Ephemeris -Finding Hercules among the stars

June 12, 2023

This is Ephemeris for Monday, June 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 31 minutes, setting at 9:28, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:56. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:13 tomorrow morning.

Orion, the hard luck mythical Greek hunter, gets a splashy constellation in the winter sky, but the greatest hero of all, Hercules, gets a dim group of stars on the border between the spring and summer stars. At 11 p.m. Hercules is high in the east-southeast. It is located above and right of the bright star Vega, in the east. Hercules’ central feature is a keystone shaped box of stars, called, of course, the Keystone of Hercules tilted to the left, which represents the old boy’s shorts. From the top and left corner stars extend lines of stars that are his legs, from the bottom and right stars, the rest of his torso and arms extend. So in one final indignity, he’s upside down in our sky. For those with a telescope, Hercules contains the beautiful globular star cluster Messier 13.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Hercules finder animation
Hercules can be found in the east to east-southeast among the line of constellations at around 11 pm in late May or early June between the bright stars Arcturus and Vega. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
Hercules globular star cluster finder
Hercules with all the stars visible in binoculars and its two globular star clusters: M13 and M92. M13 is almost bright enough to be spotted with the naked eye. It is easily visible in binoculars as a tiny fuzzy spot. It takes a telescope with an aperture of 6-8″ or 150 – 200 mm to begin to see some individual stars. M92 is dimmer and harder to resolve. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

M 13 or Messier 13, the Great Hercules Globular Star Cluster, contains hundreds of thousands of stars, and is located around 25 thousand light years away. Credit: Daniel Dall’Olmo, Grand Traverse Astronomical Society member.
Categories: Constellations, Mythology, Observing, Star Cluster Tags: , , ,