By Dan Hicks

This May marks a minor Cranbrookian astronomical milestone in that the month will be the third successive year in which I have distributed Sky & Telescope star charts to the Rocky Mountain Naturalists (RMN), all of whom have high-end birding binoculars capable of revealing much of what adorns the starry heavens above, those alluring sights enticing us to embrace our real stars.

My ledger-sized star charts this May are actually the S&T charts for our June 2025 evening sky – showing Mars and four lunar phases, but depicting our stars as they presently are at midnight; their reverse sides feature a chart of Herculean globular star clusters M13 and M92 (“M” for comet-hunting French astronomer “Charles Messier,” 1730-1817) and an ace RASC summary of our stellar June events (RASC = Royal Astronomical Society of Canada). The May RMN meeting will be held on the 21st at Wycliffe, curious membership candidates can communicate via the RMN website (rockymountainnaturalists.org –“contact”).

Cranbrook Public Library patrons are welcome to these S&T June star charts too, should our library itself regard them as indelibly edifying, for whether equipped with binoculars or not, my fond hope is that the charts will inspire the astronomically curious and thereafter endure as haute couture diner table place mats.

Lead image: As Lunation #1265 was concluding, its waning crescent moon (8% illuminated) rose over the Cranbrook Community Forest, as seen from the old Canadian Tire parking lot; astronomical altitude 4.4 degrees & azimuth 94 degrees (east). April 25, 2025, 06:03 MDT.  Dan Hicks photo

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