Key Takeaways
- On the evening of Tuesday 23 June 2026 the waxing gibbous Moon sits right next to Spica, the brightest star in Virgo
- Look south as the sky darkens, from around 9.30pm to 10pm BST — the Moon is the obvious landmark, with Spica to its lower right
- No equipment needed: both are easily visible to the naked eye, even from a town garden
- The bright 'star' is Spica (magnitude 0.9), a blue-white pair of stars 250 light-years away
- The Moon brushed past Spica on the 22nd and pulls away again on the 24th, so cloud on one night isn't fatal
📑 Table of Contents
The Moon and Spica Conjunction on 23 June 2026
If you glance south after dark on Tuesday 23 June, you'll spot a bright "star" sitting just below and to the right of the Moon. That's Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and tonight the waxing gibbous Moon parks right next to it.
It's a quiet little pairing rather than a headline event, but that's part of the charm. There's no equipment to set up and no narrow window to catch. The Moon is about 68% lit, easily the brightest thing in the evening sky, and Spica is bright enough to shrug off both the Moon's glare and the lingering June twilight. Find the Moon, look to its lower right, and the brightest point of light you see is Spica.
The two only look like neighbours. The Moon is about 400,000 km away; Spica's light has been travelling for roughly 250 years to reach the same patch of sky. It's a line-of-sight coincidence, but a pretty one, and exactly the sort of thing that gets people looking up on a walk home.
What Time and Where to Look From the UK
Face south as the sky darkens. The Moon will be the obvious landmark, fairly high up, with Spica close by to its lower right. You don't need to know the constellations — just let the Moon point the way.
Timing is relaxed. Sunset on 23 June is around 9.20pm BST in London and closer to 10pm in northern Scotland, and at this time of year the sky stays stubbornly bright for a while after. Spica really comes into its own from about 9.30pm to 10pm, once the deep blue of twilight has faded enough for the star to sharpen up. The Moon stays out for hours after that, so there's no rush.
This is one of the easiest sights in all of stargazing. No telescope, no star chart, no dark-sky site — a back garden or a city pavement will do. Binoculars are a nice extra: they bring out Spica's cool blue-white colour and turn the Moon's terminator into a row of crisp little craters. But the main event is pure naked-eye.
If the great British weather gets in the way, don't worry. The Moon brushed past Spica on the evening of the 22nd and will have drifted clear to the east by the 24th, so the nights on either side still show the two reasonably close together.
Binoculars for tonight
The Moon and Spica are an easy naked-eye pair, but binoculars are what turn it into a proper session — Spica's blue-white colour pops, and the craters along the Moon's terminator line snap into focus. These are the three we'd reach for.
Browse all our binocular reviews →
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What Is Spica, the Star Beside the Moon?
Spica — formally Alpha Virginis — is the brightest star in Virgo and the 16th brightest in the entire night sky. At magnitude 0.9 it's a genuine first-magnitude star, and its blue-white colour is a giveaway: that hue means it's far hotter than our yellow Sun.
It's also not really one star. Spica is a close binary, two hot blue stars whipping around each other every four days, so tightly bound that no telescope can split them into two. The larger of the pair is around ten times the mass of the Sun; together they pour out thousands of times more light. That's how a star 250 light-years away can sit beside the Moon and still hold your eye.
Spica has guided people for a very long time. It's one of the 58 navigational stars sailors used to fix their position at sea, and there's a neat trick for finding it any clear spring or summer night: "arc to Arcturus, then speed on to Spica." Follow the curve of the Big Dipper's handle to the orange star Arcturus, then carry that arc onwards and it lands you on Spica. Tonight, the Moon does the pointing for you.
How to Tell Spica From a Planet
People often ask whether a bright point next to the Moon is a star or a planet. Tonight it's a star, and there's an easy way to confirm it: Spica twinkles. Stars are so far away that they're effectively pinpoints, so our shifting atmosphere makes them flicker and even flash faint colours. Planets show as tiny discs and shine with a steadier, calmer light.
The colour helps too. Spica's cool blue-white is unmistakable once you notice it, quite different from the creamy white of Venus or the warm tints of Mars and Jupiter. And the bright evening planets — Venus, Jupiter and Mercury — have been hugging the western horizon after sunset this month, while Spica and the Moon sit over in the south. If it's in the south, twinkling, with a blue-white tinge, you've found Spica.
After Tonight: What's Next in the Sky
The Moon doesn't stop here. Over the following evenings it climbs higher and tracks eastward night by night, pulling away from Spica and fattening towards full. By the 24th the gap has opened up noticeably; within a week the Moon has moved on through the summer constellations entirely.
Spica, meanwhile, stays put as a fixture of the late spring and summer sky, sinking a little lower in the west as the weeks pass. The Moon will swing back past it again next month — it makes this pass roughly every four weeks — so if tonight clouds over, you'll get another go.
For everything else worth looking up for this month, including the bright planet line-up low in the west after sunset, see our complete UK June night sky guide.
Clear skies — and let's hope the weather plays along.
Sources:
- Astronomical events June 2026 — Star Walk
- Waxing gibbous Moon passes Spica, 22–24 June 2026 — When the Curves Line Up
- Spica (Alpha Virginis) — star facts — Star Facts
- Spica, the bright beacon of Virgo, is 2 stars — EarthSky
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