THIS Thursday evening there's a chance to see the Moon and Mars shining close together in the sky after dark, writes STUART ATKINSON. To see them, just go outside around 7.45pm (or later) and look to the south east. You'll immediately see the Moon shining low in the sky in that direction, just a few days away from being full. Look more closely and you'll see a bright star shining to the lower right of the Moon, This is actually Mars, the famous Red Planet, although you'll notice it looks more orange than red.

Having found the Moon and Mars, look a little further over to their right and at about the same height as the Moon and Mars you'll see a reasonably bright orange-white star shining above the southern horizon. This is the planet Saturn. Amazingly, it's now been a year since the Cassini space probe ended its long mission by plunging into Saturn's atmosphere and burning up like a shooting star.

If you live or can get to somewhere really dark the Milky Way is a lovely sight right now. If you can get away from light pollution you'll see the Milky Way as a misty band of light running from the south west to the north east, cutting the sky in half.