Tonight
Sky Tonight
What is above Hollowmoor Ridge tonight
Scroll to run the night
Sky TonightRA --h --mDEC --°
Skip introLive from the observatory
The sky aboveHollowmoor Ridge
Calculated for our roof deck at 51.15° north, from the real positions of the stars, Moon and planets. Drag the clock through the night, or choose another date.
Calculating tonight's sky
Tonight
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That night, in a sentence
Working out what is worth looking at.
Planets you can see
The month ahead
Thirty nights of the Moon
The Moon decides more about a night of observing than anything but cloud. Each glyph shows its phase at ten in the evening.
Dark nights: Moon less than a quarter lit
Coming up
- Working out the dates
Seeing more
Four habits of good observers
Give your eyes twenty minutes
Full night vision takes twenty to thirty minutes to arrive and one glance at a phone to lose. Turn screens to red or put them away.
Look slightly away
The edge of your vision is more sensitive than the centre. Faint galaxies often appear only when you look just beside them.
Find the bright ones first
Planets do not twinkle the way stars do. A steady, bright point near the path of the Sun and Moon is almost always a planet.
Use the shapes
Learn three patterns and the rest follow: the Plough, Orion and the Summer Triangle. Every other constellation can be found from those.
