What can I see tonight?

What is worth looking at tonight depends on three things: where you are, what the date is, and whether the Moon is up. That is a calculation, not an article — so this page explains what to expect, and then hands you to the thing that does the sums for your own garden.

The order to do it in

1. Check the Moon. A bright Moon washes out everything faint. It is wonderful to look at itself, and ruinous for galaxies and nebulae. 2. Get dark. Twenty minutes without looking at a screen; your eyes genuinely keep improving for an hour. 3. Start bright. Planets first, while you are still finding your way about. 4. Then faint. Clusters, then nebulae, then galaxies, in that order of difficulty.

The bright things, most nights

At any given time two or three planets are usually up. They are the easiest win in astronomy: brighter than almost every star, and they do not twinkle.

The MoonmoonNaked eyeVenusplanetNaked eyeJupiterplanetNaked eyeSaturnplanetNaked eyeMarsplanetNaked eyeMercuryplanetNaked eye

If it is properly dark

Away from streetlights, on a moonless night, these become possible — and the Milky Way itself becomes visible as a band of haze, which most people have genuinely never seen.

The Milky Wayspiral galaxyNaked eyeAndromeda Galaxy (M31)spiral galaxyNaked eyeThe Orion Nebulaemission nebulaNaked eyeThe Pleiades (Seven Sisters)open star clusterNaked eyeThe Hercules Cluster (M13)globular star clusterNaked eyeThe Beehive Cluster (Praesepe)open star clusterNaked eye

Things that only happen on particular nights

Eclipses, meteor showers, close pairings of two planets, a planet at its closest for the year. These are worth staying up for, and they are worth knowing about in advance rather than reading about afterwards.

• Eclipses, conjunctions and other sky events — what each one is, and what to expect
• My next eclipse of the Moon — computed for your location
• My next meteor shower — computed for your location

Taking a child out

Two objects is a good night. Four is too many. Let them find the second one themselves, even though it takes ten times as long — the one they found is the one they will remember. And take a printed sheet, because writing down what you saw is what turns an evening into something they still have next week.

Then go outside

Clear sky beats every website, including this one.