The sky guide challenge

Best time to see: 31 August, 04:00 BST (03:00 UT) Altitude: 48° Location: Taurus Direction: Southeast Features: Colour, subtle atmospheric banding, moons Recommended equipment: 200mm or larger It’s su

BEST TIME TO SEE: From 03:30 BST (02:30 UT) all month. Closest approach on 12 August Venus is the brightest planet that can be seen from Earth. At its peak brightness, when 22% illuminated, Venus appr

1 Our Moonwatch target (see page 52), the walled plain Flammarion, is well placed this evening and tomorrow evening. You can also catch it on the waning Moon on the morning of 16 August. 2 This evenin

The faint, rather indistinct constellation Camelopardalis is supposed to represent a giraffe. It sits between Polaris (Alpha (α) Ursae Minoris) and Capella (Alpha (α) Aurigae). Our first target is loc

Ten years ago, Pluto emerged from the gloom at the Solar System’s ragged edge – and a new world came in from the cold. Five billion kilometres (3 billion miles) from Earth, on 14 July 2015, NASA’s pia

1 NGC 6624 We’ll start with globular cluster NGC 6624 located in the northwest corner of the Teapot, 0.8° southeast of mag. +2.7 Kaus Media (Delta (δ) Sagittarii). Shining with an integrated magnitude