I HAVE always thought that compared to the winter sky, which is crammed full of bright, colourful stars, glittering star clusters and beautiful swirly nebulae, all decorating small, easily-spotted constellations, the spring sky seems a little dull. After all, it only has a handful of really bright stars, and its major constellations are generally large and spread out across wide areas of the sky too. It is spattered with dozens of galaxies, but they are very distant, very faint and very small, and only experienced amateur astronomers with good telescopes get excited about those tiny smudges, to be honest. So what is there for everyone else to see?

Jupiter is now visible all night, already shining brightly in the east as the sky darkens at twilight. It is now brighter than everything else in the sky other than the Sun and Moon, and if you have a pair of binoculars you can see some of its moons huddled up close to it, looking like tiny stars. They're arranged differently every night; phone apps or websites will help you identify which is which.

Look to the east around 4am and you will see Saturn and Mars shining quite close together. Saturn, on the right, has a slightly yellow hue, while Mars is distinctly orange in colour. You'll need a telescope to see markings on Mars' surface or Saturn's famous rings. Venus is now so close to the Sun in the morning sky it is all but lost in the light of dawn.