What's up in the Sky?

As equinox passes us by, our nights lengthen noticeably and the sky becomes clearer as it dries. It is a good time to be observing. Too bad it can get so cold. There are lots of things to share with friends and family this month. Meteors and the...

This month, all the naked eye visible planets can be seen all month. Mercury and Venus are very low in the W and WSW during evening twilight. Mars will be high in the E in the morning sky. Jupiter will rise before 4 AM in the ENE and be in the E by...

On July 11, we joined the crowd that was welcoming the Danko telescope to Lennox and Addington Dark Sky Viewing Area. As a Global News crew aired a segment about the telescope earlier in the week, there was a capacity crowd. Digital tickets for...

July is looking pretty quiet this year. The last Full Moon was June 29, making fainter objects hard to see the first week of this month.  Mercury is low in ENE in morning twilight after mid-month. Venus is on the other side of the Sun visible low...

Comet MAPS did not survive its close encounter with the sun! Comet Panstars is putting on a great show for those in the Southern Hemisphere. The Flame Star still has not gone Nova. The Artemis II mission was a rousing success. I hope you all managed...

This month all the naked eye visible planets will be seen at some point during the month. Mercury will be in the ESE in the early morning twilight, Venus will be low in the W during evening twilight.  Mars is coming around from the far side of the...

This month all the naked eye visible planets, but Mars, are visible in the evening sky. Mercury will be in the SW twilight all month, Venus in the WSW after the middle of the month. Jupiter will be in the E at dusk and set in the NW after 5 AM....

Winter is a good time to observe the night sky. We do get more hours of darkness than in the summer, the air is drier and generally quieter, more bright stars and there are no insects to annoy you. The downside is, it can be very cold and you need...

Two of the naked eye visible planets will be lost in twilight by mid month, both Mercury (low in the SE in the evening) and Venus (very low in the ENE in the morning). Mars is still in solar conjunction, which means it is on the far side of the sun...

Comet Atlas is near Venus, Comet Swan has moved across the southern sky and now in the SE, and Comet Lemmon is approaching Ophiuchus. The Orionid Meteor shower is still happening and there are three more Meteor showers in November. Lots to try to...

LATE BREAKING NEWS: Three comets and a meteor shower may be naked eye visible before the end of the month! Early predictions expect October 21to be best viewing. C/2025 A6 Lemmon is closet to Earth Oct 21, C/2025 R2 Swan could be visible for the...

All the planets are visible this month. Mercury and Venus are low in the ENE in morning twilight. Mercury will be lost before the month is out. Jupiter will rise before 2 am and be high in the E by dawn. Saturn will rise in the E at dusk and set at...

by John and Peggy Hurley We hope you saw the lunar eclipse last month. We did. It was hard to see a change in the Penumbral stage but the Umbra was quite dark. The moon in eclipse looked like a pumpkin in the sky. The young moon will start this...

Lucky us! We have 2 meteor showers this month but don’t celebrate yet. A major one is the Geminids that runs from December 4 to the 20th. Sadly we have that big Christmas tree ornament in the sky called an almost Full Moon blotting out most of the...

Well I stand corrected! When I stepped out the front door at 10 pm, Thursday evening, October 10 for my dog Maggie’s good night walk, my eyes got a blast of colour so intense I just about fell over myself. Right in front of me was a stunning...

A promisingly visible comet, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) will be in sight in the west shortly after the Sun sets on October 9. Look towards the eastern side of Virgo preferably with binoculars. Follow it during the next hour and you will...

Events in the night sky are mostly predictable but this month, predictions are few and far between. No spectaculars are expected but, as I often write, go out when it’s dark and clear and expect the unexpected. The beauty spread across the heavens...

Well, we’re on that downhill slide to Winter but that’s good news for amateur astronomers. It means that days are getting shorter and, most importantly, the nights are getting longer. No more staying up to late night to catch a glimpse of your...

Summertime and there’s glory in the sky! But, nights are short and you have to wait up late to start exploring the sky. For those of you who are willing to sacrifice some sleep time you will find our Milky Way a feast for the eyes as it arches...

For thousands of years people have been fascinated with the aurora borealis or northern lights and its southern counter part, the southern lights (aurora australis). They are not exactly the same due to fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field,...

After the hubbub of the total solar eclipse earlier in April, I guess we’re back to the ordinary and supposedly less spectacular monthly events. But wait a sec! Our sky is essentially a smorgasbord with an infinite menu of objects and events that...

Wait! Never mind the header at the top of this column! For this month only, it should read “What’s up in the DAY Sky?”. The long awaited Total Eclipse of the Sun arrives in only a few days; mark it: 8th of April. In our area, along highway 7,...

Lights Out next month! On April 8 there will be a 99% and a bit, almost total eclipse of the Sun occurring in the Sharbot Lake area. If you are willing to go south half way towards Kingston, you will experience a Total eclipse of the Sun for about 1...

Compared to most months, this one has nothing particularly exciting, spectacular or easily available to jangle your nerves or give you that hit of adrenaline, but then again, there’s a whole universe on display every clear night just begging to be...

Let’s get to work! To track down the Star of Bethlehem, an event that happened 2,000 years ago, we must have a reasonably accurate idea of when Jesus Christ was born. Theological historians place the birth of Jesus in September or October in 3 or...

Besides Christmas, there’s another spectacular splash of bright lights this December. The annual Geminid meteor shower will be upon us. This shower is active from December 4 to the 17th and is considered the most active and the best meteor shower...

Who needs a telescope to enjoy the night sky? Sure, a scope is great for looking at distant and tiny things and is an indispensable tool for much enjoyable observing, but you can miss out on the big picture! Can you look at the Milky Way as it arcs...

Where is the centre of the Universe? The short answer is that the universe has no centre and no boundary! Think of a 2-dimensional creature living on the surface of a balloon. Where would the centre be to that 2 dimensional being? The balloon can...

Have you seen the pictures coming from the Webb Space Telescope? They are stunning, fantastic and filled with new and unforeseen scientific information. I caught a picture of the Whirlpool Galaxy on the news this morning and heard that the...

The Perseids are coming! August nights are lengthening as we head for the autumn and that means extra time for observing. That’s a bonus because the main event this month is the annual Perseid meteor shower. It’s the big one with more fireballs...

Oh my, oh my! It’s summer nights with only a few hours of darkness plus bugs galore to keep you company, but that’s not to say that enjoyable night sky travelling can’t be done. With Solstice done, the dark time is getting longer as the sun...

The planets are the main attraction this month. You can’t beat the brilliant sight of Venus high in the west this month. It’s prominent soon after sunset until it sets about 11:30 pm. Its brightness reaches -4.7 by month’s end. It sits in...

No spectacular astronomical events are expected this month unless you count pointing your eyes up at the night sky and having an entire universe to investigate. Sadly, that’s becoming more difficult as light pollution decreases sky darkness each...

No spectacular astronomical events are expected this month unless you count pointing your eyes up at the night sky and having an entire universe to investigate. Sadly, that’s becoming more difficult as light pollution decreases sky darkness each...

Welcome to the Lyrid meteor shower this month! It’s active from April 14 to the 30th. Its radiant is in the constellation Lyra and close to the bright star Vega. It peaks on the evening of the 22nd. Just in time at mid month, the constellation...

Through most of February, brilliant Venus and Jupiter have been a spectacular and stunning sight in the west just after sunset. It’s hard not to notice them in the evening sky, as their orbital paths bring them closer to each other every evening....

Snow, snow snow! It sure would be nice to have lots of starry light falling from a clear sky instead. There are no meteor showers to speak of this month except for the unexpected and random streaks of sporadic background meteors. We do have the...

What a great month for amateur astronomers! First, we have the eye popping Geminid meteor shower peaking at about 150 meteors per hour on the evening of December 13/14 and then we have a very bright, 70 degrees high in the sky, Mars for most of...

We have a pretty good month coming up. Another decent meteor shower graces our sky - the Leonids, and there is a total eclipse of the Moon on the 8th! Don’t overlook Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They are easy and extraordinary sights in early and mid...

It crashed! A NASA mission known as DART succeeded in colliding with an asteroid to test technologies for protecting Earth from asteroids that might be on a collision course with us. The space flight gathered information on a defense technique known...

Saturn and Jupiter are a must to follow and observe through September. We have a cool fall sky with early darkness and no bugs! Saturn is a month past opposition and Jupiter will be at opposition late in the month. At opposition, a planet is as...

I really enjoy taking you on a tour of the Milky Way and the summer triangle at this time every year.  The observing hour is not too late for amateurs and family to go out and enjoy a not too difficult observing challenge with or without binoculars...

The appearance of all seven planets in the eastern morning sky later this month before sunrise, will present to us a pretty rare view of all the main bodies of our solar system. On the 24th, they will all be lined up along the ecliptic with a...

We have a real sky treat this month, a total eclipse of the Moon! It will be the first of two this year (The second occurs on November 8 in the early morning). The eclipse begins about 9:30 pm EDT when the outer edge of the Earth’s shadow, the...

Great news! The Webb Space Telescope is open for business. After an incredibly complicated journey and a complex mechanical opening from its compact storage configuration in the Ariane rocket nose cone, it’s now taking its first pictures. We can...

Spring is coming! As I write this, a blustery, gusty snow squall is blasting outside my windows. But take heart, it will come as long as the Earth keeps orbiting the Sun. The Earth has a 23.5 axial tilt and it is that tilt that changes how directly...

A fabulous first gift was opened this Christmas with the successful early morning lift off of the James Webb Space Telescope. It was launched on top of an Ariane rocket from Europe’s spaceport in French Guyana in South America. Even my 4 year old...

The crisp clear nights of January and February are perfect for exploring the constellation Orion. Binoculars are very suitable for this adventure. You can find the easily recognizable hour glass figure of Orion the Hunter in the south in the early...

We have 2 meteor showers this month. Sadly, one of them, the Ursids, will be blotted out by the Moon all night. It’s a good shower so if you want to give it a try, the Ursids run from the 17th to the 26th and peak on the 22nd. The big one, the...

In the early morning of November 19th at 3:19 am, we have a Full Moon – but with a special treat. Between 2am and 5am, a total penumbral eclipse takes place. Remember that an eclipse of the Moon can only occur at full moon when the Earth comes...