Observing

With autumn beckoning, our lengthening nights will thankfully soon be blessed again with twilight-free skies. Provided you’re observing from a site free from major light-pollution, you’ll enjoy getting reacquainted with the multitude of deep-sky delights that are on show now and throughout the autumn.

Distant planet Neptune is now positioned at its best for 2021 as it reaches opposition on on 14 September, when the Sun, Earth and Neptune line up.

Asteroid Pallas, the second asteroid to be discovered and one of the so-called ‘big four’ asteroids, is at its best for 2021 and is well placed for observation from UK shores.

Don’t mission your chance to see Venus and a slender Moon, the two brightest objects in the night sky, come together for a few days this week.

Watching a bright star disappearing or reappearing from occultation behind the Moon’s limb is always an exciting observation to make. This week there are back-to-back events involving two of the brightest stars to be occulted this year.

RS Ophiuchi, the most famous recurrent nova and one of just seven such systems, has gone into a very rare outburst, rising rapidly brightness 600-fold in just a day from magnitude +12 to around +5.

It’s that time of the year again! The Perseid meteor shower, which peaks this week, is highly-anticipated by observers hoping to enjoy the spectacular sight of multiple meteors raining down during mild summer nights.

Saturn, often described as the jewel in the Solar System’s crown, comes to opposition on the night of 1/2 August in one of the highlights of the observing year.

Soon after sunset on Monday (12 July) there’s an opportunity to see a close encounter between Venus and Mars with a crescent Moon nearby.