I love their American-centricness. For the majority of the world the solstice wasn't yesterday, it was today... 

Indeed! 😁 Sky & Telescope puts it as: "It's the longest day and the shortest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. Summer begins at the solstice, 10:42 p.m. EDT; 7:42 p.m. PDT; 2:42 June 21st Universal Time.

This is also when (in the north temperate latitudes) the midday Sun passes the closest it ever can to being straight overhead, and thus when your shadow becomes the shortest it can ever be where you live."

The Royal Observatory says: "21 June – The summer solstice

The Northern Hemisphere will mark the summer solstice on 21 June, the ‘longest day of the year’, when there will be around 16.5 hours of daylight. The exact moment of the solstice is at 3.42 am BST, which is the point at which the Northern Hemisphere is tilted farthest towards the Sun. From here on out the days will get progressively shorter until the winter solstice on 21 December."

First celestial image unveiled from revolutionary telescope

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3rmjjgx6xo 

Interestingly: Maintaining this darkness is sacrosanct. The bus ride up and down the windy road at night must be done cautiously, because full-beam headlights must not be used.

Good story on a local hero, Sir Joseph Banks.

"Endeavour was sailing near Timor Island (latitude -9.9o) on Sept. 16, 1770, when red auroras appeared in the night sky. The expedition's naturalist Joseph A. Banks and his assistant Sydney Parkinson both noted the event in their logs, although they were unsure what they had seen."

https://spaceweather.com/ 

Astounding SpaceWeather piece.

"Amateur astronomer Peter Rosen has released a jaw-dropping new film of Jupiter’s storm systems that looks like it came straight from a spacecraft in orbit."

https://spaceweather.com/ 

The night sky over Canada and Europe turned electric blue on June 29-30 during a major outbreak of noctilucent clouds (NLCs).

https://spaceweather.com/images2025/30jun25/panorama_strip.jpg 

https://spaceweather.com/ 

From The Week:

A visitor from another solar system

3I/Atlas, detected by the Atlas* telescope in Chile last Tuesday, is approaching from Sagittarius, and would be only the third interstellar object ever recorded as such. It is moving at 60km/sec, faster than the previous two recorded, which only date from the last ten years. It is about 20km across, but should miss Earth by 1.6AU (250 million km). By closest approach in December, it will be visible through amateur telescopes.

* Atlas = Asteroid Terrestrial Last Impact System

SpaceWeather 

The black circular shadow of Titan will fall across the cloudtops of Saturn.

"This week, amateur astronomers can witness a rare event. The black circular shadow of Titan will fall across the cloudtops of Saturn. Look for it through backyard telescopes on July 18th between 07:00 UT and 12:05 UTC. This timing favors observers in the Americas, where Saturn will be halfway up the pre-dawn sky when the shadow appears."

https://spaceweather.com/ 

Full Story: in Sky & Telescope

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/titan-shadow-transit-season-underway/ 

Well I'll be bogonged! 😁

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09135-3 

SpaceWeather:

Dawn came early to Europe today. However, it wasn't the sun lighting up the morning sky. This was a late-season outbreak of noctilucent clouds: 

https://spaceweather.com/images2025/20jul25/Marek-Nikodem-CDS_7208_1752983590_strip.jpg 

https://spaceweather.com/ 

IS COMET 3I/ATLAS ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?

https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/HCL25.pdf 

https://spaceweather.com/ 

Link directs to "404 Page not found" error

Thanks, David - may have been a typo in the link - try:

https://spaceweather.com/ 

or

https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/HCL25.pdf 

Both of these links work. The Harvard one reads like an episode of the X-files but with added technology🙄

Yes.

It's not alien technology it's a comet or similar. End of.

😁 The question is whether it is easier to imagine "we are alone", or "we are not alone"? Given the variety of life forms the Earth has managed to produce, we are free to let our thoughts range from "creationist" thinking to "aliens", perhaps ending up with "Maybe we just happened!" or "Life is but a dream!"

Though perhaps we could get the conspiracy theorists onto it and get them to forget about contrails (that have, strangely (?) been entirely absent above here this summer).

I agree the priority must be to discover whether there is such a thing as "terrestrial intelligence", Dev. 😁😁😁

As I said above: "Maybe we just happened!" or "Life is but a dream!"

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we CAN imagine" - JBS Haldane 

(Werner Heisenberg said something similar)

A new moon in late July will give us dark skies – perfect for spotting this beautiful meteor shower, says Abigail Beal

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26735530-700-how-to-spot-the-delta-aquariids-meteor-shower-this-month/ 

Meteor shower dates - RMG

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/meteor-shower-guide 

Mars rock found in Niger sells for millions in New York

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly3q635n4no 

The piece of Martian rock found in 2023 appears to have been taken out of the state of Niger, either before anyone realised its importance or before it was realised that export regulations (previously ambiguous) should be tightened up

ISS just passed close to the Jupiter Venus conjunction ENE low on horizon but out of my line of sight! 😬

Heads up.

Perseid meteor shower: When, where and how to catch a glimpse

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy7d7e82gno 

Clear skies.

1am - but no Perseids seen. I can pick our "Capella" to the NE but there's just too much moonlight and cloud to spoil the seeing. Back to bed, I think.

👍

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/venus-jupiter-12-august-2025-images