Mars and Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and a dark nebula. 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: Thursday, 01 August 2024 at 08:50 AM

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.

The Milky Way by Jonathan Green, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand. Equipment: Canon 60Da, Samyang 14mm Lens

Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight: highlights, August 2024

This month, the rare sight of two planets in the same field of view in a telescope, as Jupiter and Mars meet in the morning sky (rising around 03:00) beneath the Hyades.

Mars is of similar brightness (mag. +0.9) and reddish colour to nearby Aldebaran. Jupiter is much brighter at mag. –2.2.

The Red Planet drops towards it, with closest approach on 15 August, 15 arcminutes apart.

Mars appears smaller than this gas giant, being 6 arcseconds and 37 arcseconds across, respectively.

Stars and constellations

A familiar sight for Australian astronomers: the Southern Cross, which adorns Australia's national flag, and the Coalsack Nebula, also known Down Under as the head of the 'Emu in the Sky'. Image Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky — The Southern Cross and the Coalsack Nebula. Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky

You’ll know the dark nebula named the Coalsack Nebula, near the Southern Cross, but there is another in the north too.

The Northern Coalsack lies in the northern Milky Way in the giant dark rift which becomes visible near Ophiuchus.

This rift continues down (north) passing through Serpens, Aquila and Vulpecula to terminate at a bulbous knot, where the nebula lies just above Deneb in Cygnus.

Deneb is easy to spot, being the bottom (most northern) member of the Northern Cross asterism.

Planets

August begins with Mercury in the western twilight sky before it drops into the solar glare and is lost from the evening by midmonth.

Venus’s beacon can’t be missed, slowly gaining altitude in the west as Mercury departs.

With Saturn at opposition next month, this ringed wonder is rising during twilight and visible all night. Neptune follows Saturn around an hour later.

Turning to the morning, Uranus is rising around 01:00, followed by Mars and Jupiter two hours later.

Eta Aquilae, captured by the Digitised Sky Survey (https://archive.eso.org/dss/dss)

Deep-sky

This month, we pay a visit to the constellation of Aquila.

Located 1° north-northwest of the third-magnitude star Lambda (λ) Aquilae is the double star 15 Aquilae.

It’s ideal for binoculars, having mag. +5.5 and mag. +7.1 yellow components separated by 38 arcseconds.

Aquilae is home to many open star clusters, rich star fields and an obvious patchwork of dark nebulae.

Centering on third-magnitude Zeta Aquilae (ζ) reveals such a patchwork with a small bright knot 2.5° south-southwest: NGC 6738 (RA 19h 01.3m, dec. +11° 36’).

This loose open cluster is 20 arcminutes across, with about 50 stars from ninth to 12th magnitude.

Some brighter members run north–south in a curved chain through its centre.

The central star, HD 230435, is a nice double with mag. +9.1 and mag. +12 companions 18 arcseconds apart.