June 30, 2025: Four planets and the moon are visible during the night, Venus and Mars before daybreak, and Mercury, Mars, and Moon after nightfall.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 5:19 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 8:30 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
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Venus Summary Article
VENUS AS A MORNING STAR, 2025
The month ends with daylight lasting 15 hours, 11 minutes at Chicago’s latitude.
Four Bright Planets Nightly
During the night, four bright planets – Venus, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars – are visible. Jupiter hides in bright sunlight, rising less than 20 minutes before the sun. The crescent moon is in the west-southwest after nightfall.
Next month, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn are visible before sunrise, along with dimmer Uranus and Neptune.
Morning Venus and Pleiades
An hour before sunrise, brilliant Venus shines in the eastern sky. Look for it over 15° above the horizon. Its brilliance makes its identification easy as it outshines all stars in the sky this morning.
Venus steps eastward in front of Taurus, 8.5° to the lower right of the Pleiades star cluster and 15.0° to the upper right of Aldebaran, Taurus’ brightest star, which is at its heliacal rising or first morning appearance. Use a binocular to initially locate it about 5° above the east-northeast horizon. Can you see Aldebaran without the binocular?
Saturn
At this hour, Saturn is less than halfway up in the southeast. Noticeably dimmer than Venus, it is brighter than most other stars this morning. The Ringed Wonder is dimmer than its average brightness from the tilt of its icy rings that are reflecting light away from Earth. Through a telescope, we nearly see the rings from the side, like looking at the edge of a dinner plate.
The star Deneb Kaitos, Cetus’ tail, is about halfway from the horizon to Saturn. It is about half the planet’s brightness.
Mercury, Mars, Moon after Nightfall
An hour after sunset, the crescent moon, 34% illuminated, is over 25° above the west-southwest horizon and 13.1° to Denebola’s lower left, the Lion’s tail.
Even at this crescent phase, the moon is bright enough to illuminate the ground and cast shadows.
At this season, Leo begins to descend into bright evening twilight. Blue-white Regulus is nearly 20° to the moon’s lower right. It is part of a half-dozen stars, which outline a backwards question mark or the Sickle of Leo. They outline the animal’s head.
This evening, reddish Mars is 7.6° to Regulus’ upper right and 12.4° to the lunar’ crescent’s lower right. It continues to March eastward as it fades in brightness. The distance to Earth continues to increase. Tonight, it is nearly 180 million miles from Earth.
Binocular View: Mars and Rho Leonis
Use a binocular to spot Rho Leonis (ρ Leo on the chart), 1.4° to Mars’ lower right. Like Regulus, Rho is near the ecliptic. The moon and planets pass by regularly.
At this hour, Mercury is about 5° above the west-northwest horizon, nearly 25° to Regulus’ lower right. Use a binocular to see it. As it approaches greatest elongation it fades in brightness. Bright but veiled in twilight, the speedy planet might be visible without the binocular, if the sky is exceptionally clear.
Tonight, Mercury sets 90 minutes after nightfall. Mars sets about three hours after sunset, followed by the moon about 30 minutes later.
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