The two planets, Jupiter and Mars, which will dominate our night sky for the second half of 2011 are now on view in the eastern sky before dawn. Indeed, Jupiter is unmistakable from the moment it rises in the ENE at 01:00 BST tomorrow and by midnight on the 27th. Read more
July offers wonderful evenings to enjoy the night sky. For the entire month Mercury will be visible following close behind the setting sun. Enjoy watching one of our many beautiful sunsets and then, about 30 minutes later, use binoculars to look at the sky where the sun dipped below the horizon. Read more
Myth: Astronomy is an expensive hobby that requires the use of big-dollar telescopes, eyepieces, and mounts. Fact: Astronomy can be a completely free hobby that can be pursued through the human eyes alone. Read more
July is the best time to view the Southern Cross. You can always recognize it by the two 'Pointer' stars. The bottom one is Alpha Centauri, our closest star, and through a telescope you can see it's a double star, two stars really close together in the sky. In fact, they are one of the nicest objects to look at through a small telescope. Read more
Mars is low in the east at first light and looks like a fairly bright orange star. It is almost directly above the slightly brighter orange dot Aldebaran, the "eye" of Taurus, the bull. Read more (Subscription)
For the next two weeks, Mercury sinks from about 9° high in the WNW at sunset to set itself 75 minutes later. Dimming from mag -0.7 to 0.1 during the fortnight, it is a difficult binocular object in the fading twilight and might best be caught on the 4th when it lies 24° to the right of the young Moon. Saturn stands 14° to the right of Spica in Virgo in the lower SW sky at nightfall and is setting in the W by our map times. At mag 0.9 and just brighter than Spica, it still lies close to the double star Porrima and is above the Moon on the 7th. Read more