HERE is the latest Skywatch column written by Stuart Atkinson.

Typically the Cumbrian cloud parted the day after three days in a row of beautiful auroral displays which would all have been visible from our part of the world.

Incredibly frustrating, but our turn will come, eventually, so please, keep an eye on the northern sky after dark on clear nights for the next month or so.

The Sun is very active at the moment, firing off powerful solar flares very regularly, so more displays will happen, we just need to be lucky with the weather.

I can't guarantee a big display of the northern lights being visible from Cumbria before winter begins, but I can guarantee you this: if you don't look, you'll definitely see nothing.

Meanwhile there are three bright planets on view in the evening sky now.

First to appear as the sky darkens is Jupiter, which looks like a bright blue-white star low in the south as twilight deepens.

Over to Jupiter's right is Saturn, which looks fainter and more yellow than Jupiter.

Down to Jupiter's lower left, low in the east from around 10pm, is Mars, which you can identify in a moment thanks to its distinctive and unique orange hue.

All these planets are clearly visible to the naked eye, you don't need a telescope to see them.

If you have a pair of binoculars they won't show you the planets' discs, but they will greatly enhance their brightness and their colours, and they'll also show you some of Jupiter's moons, looking like tiny stars close to the planet itself.

We have a partial eclipse of the Sun coming up at the end of the month, and I'll tell you how to observe that safely in the next column.