Comet A3, planets, star patterns and the deep-sky. Best things to see in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month

Find out what’s in the night sky tonight from your Southern Hemisphere location.

By Glenn Dawes

Published: Monday, 30 September 2024 at 13:05 PM

If you’re based in the Southern Hemisphere and want to know what you can see in the night sky tonight, this page is for you.

Our monthly-updated night-sky guide will show you what you can see in the Southern Hemisphere over the coming weeks.

We’ll include monthly highlights, stars, constellations, planets and deep-sky objects.

For more advice, read our guides to Southern Hemipshere stargazing and the best night-sky targets to see in Australia.

Highlights

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) captured by José J. Chambo, remotely from Hakos Farm, Namibia, 26 June 2024, 18:03 UTC.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), having reached perihelion in late September, starts October low in the eastern dawn sky, possibly at third magnitude and a binocular possibility.

Moving into the evening, one hour after sunset, from mid-latitude Australia, C/2023 A3 is around 5° above the western horizon on 15 October.

The 20th sees it at 13° and it closes the month at 20°, when it may still be sixth magnitude. Sadly, the Moon will interfere in the first half of October.

Stars and constellations

While in winter in the south we saw the brilliant Milky Way, now the south presents a bleaker vista.

There are few bright stars, with the region unknown (below the horizon) to the ancient Middle Easterners who assigned the stars their mythologies.

Today, much more recent constellations are named after scientific instruments, birds and some oddballs.

Just south of Grus, examples include Tucana the Toucan, Indus the Indian and Pavo the Peacock.

The Planets

The early western evening sky sees brilliant Venus still dominating, with Saturn transiting (due north) around 20:00 mid-month.

Neptune follows an hour later.

Mercury rises quickly out of the solar glow and sets around the end of twilight at month’s end.

Uranus is now rising in the early evening, with Jupiter following 2 hours later. This gas giant is best observed in the morning, allowing it time to gain altitude.

Mars arrives in the early morning and will look good in the predawn northeastern sky.

Saturn by Tom Bishton, Brisbane, Australia. Equipment: Celestron CPC GPS 800 telecsope, Celestron Neximage 5, 2x barlow lens

Deep-sky

This month, we visit Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, starting from brilliant mag. +1.1 Fomalhaut (Alpha (α) Piscis Austrini).

Moving 3° south finds the naked-eye Delta (δ) Piscis Austrini (RA 22h 55.9m, dec. –32° 32’).

This yellow double star has mag. +4.2 and +9.2 components a tight 5.2 arcseconds apart.

From Delta, move 5° west to find Beta (β) Piscis Austrini, which has a mag. +4.3 primary with an obvious, yellow mag. +7.8 companion 30 arcseconds away.

Returning to Delta, 0.8° westward is Gamma (γ) Piscis Austrini, comprising mag. +4.5 and +8.1 components just 4.3 arcseconds apart.

From Gamma, move 1.5° southeast to discover the galaxy IC 5271 (RA 22h 58.0m, dec. –33° 45’). At mag. +11.3, this spiral has a faint oval halo (2 x 1 arcseconds) with a wide, bright 1-arcsecond-wide circular core.