There have been some really clear, chilly nights over the past week so I hope some of you took advantage of them to wrap up warm, get out there and do some stargazing.

We need to make the most of them now, because halfway through April the nights are noticeably shorter and our time available for stargazing each night is getting shorter and shorter.

Spring's constellations - fainter and more spread out than Winter's - are now climbing higher and higher in the east, and the central regions of the Milky Way are starting to become visible before dawn, too, if you can stay up late enough or get up early enough to see them.

If you are an insomniac or an early riser you can see a pair of planets in the eastern sky before sunrise.

Jupiter and Saturn are currently shining quite close together in the pre-dawn sky, low in the east before sunrise.

How do you tell them apart?

Its quite easy.

Jupiter is the brighter of the two, to the left of and slightly lower in the sky than fainter Saturn.

As for their colour, Jupiter looks like a blue-white star, while Saturn has a more creamy yellow glow about it.

They are a lovely sight, but bear in mind that they are both are so low in the sky that if you have any trees, hills or buildings in their direction they might be hidden behind them when you go out looking for them.

You might read on social media that the sky will soon "blaze with shooting stars" as the annual Lyrid meteor shower reaches its peak.

Unfortunately that's not true.

The Lyrids is a very modest shower, producing just over a dozen shooting stars per hour at its peak if you are observing it under perfect conditions, but conditions are never perfect and this year an almost-Full Moon will be blazing in the sky on the night of the peak, April 21.

So, worth a look if the sky is clear but nothing as dramatic as the popular media will tell you.