Good news for all you planet watchers - Jupiter is now visible all night long. It rises in the east as twilight deepens, looking like a bright blue-white star, and is still visible as dawn approaches, glowing low in the west, having tracked across the sky through the night. It is noticeably brighter than any of the stars around it, and from a dark sky location is a genuinely stunning sight. If you have a pair of binoculars you will be able to see up to four of its horde of moons - a different number and arrangement each night, as they whip around the planet 666 million kilometres away from Earth.

If you are up before dawn you will be able to see Mars and Saturn too, quite close together in the east. Both are reasonably bright - though much fainter than Jupiter. Like Jupiter, both planets shine with a much steadier light than any of the stars around them, and don't appear to twinkle anywhere near as much. They also stand out because of their colour: Mars is an obvious orange-red colour, and Saturn has a definite golden yellow hue.

If you want to see some more dramatic colours in the night sky, just look towards Orion. At the top left, the star Betelgeuse shows a very obvious red colour, and opposite it, to the lower right, Rigel is a beautiful, icy blue. Just look around the sky on the next clear night and you'll see colours everywhere.

Stuart Atkinson

Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal