Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) is a brand new comet discovered by on August 11 by Hideo Nishimura of Japan. In its one and only visit to the Solar System, it may reach magnitude +2 when at perihelion in September.
NGC 6946 is a marvellously handsome-looking galaxy, with its enticing ‘pinwheel’ spiral structure set in a star-sparkling field for those imagers looking for the prettiest of pictures.
The Perseid meteor shower, the year’s most popular shooting star show, reaches its predicted maximum activity this weekend, with the Moon’s glare not such a factor this time around.
NGC 6791 is well placed on August nights; located under 10 degrees east of brilliant Vega (alpha [α] Lyrae), it rides high and can be observed throughout the darkening nights.
Amongst its embarrassment of deep-sky riches, mighty Cygnus, the Swan, hosts two famous stars, the dwarf nova variable star SS Cygni and the binary 61 Cygni.
Messier 14 (NGC 6402) is one of Ophiuchus’ seven Messier-tagged globular clusters, which are incredibly dense balls of stars that can provide striking viewing.
It’s quite an accolade for NGC 4565, a stunning edge-on galaxy in Coma Berenices that’s also known as Caldwell 38 and the Needle Galaxy, to be widely regarded as the finest in its class.
There are so many bright galaxies to choose from in springtime, but one you definitely shouldn’t miss is the marvellous ‘Black Eye Galaxy’, or Messier 64.