BBC Sky at Night

Sky at Night magazine is your practical guide to astronomy. Each issue features the world’s biggest and best night sky guide complete with star charts, observing tutorials and in-depth equipment reviews to ensure that amateur astronomers never miss those must-see events.

Welcome • Enjoy the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, at opposition

This month’s contributors

JUPITER ALIGHT • Lucky imaging reveals an ultra-sharp image of our largest planet

Nearest stellar-mass black hole revealed • Giving off no radiation, it was only discovered by its gravitational effects

Comment • by Chris Lintott

Dinosaurs doomed by steep asteroid • The killer space rock hit at its most destructive angle

Earliest ring galaxy revealed

NEWS IN BRIEF

Crew Dragon launch a success • The mission is the first time a private company has launched humans into space

Taking a reluctant star’s heartbeat • The pulse was taken with a telescope designed to find exoplanets

Mud made Mars’s landscape

Saturn’s moon Titan is perfectly placed • A safe spot in orbit prevented the mammoth moon from being swallowed whole

Galaxies form from the inside out • A novel instrument mapping the age of stars is helping to show how galaxies grow

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT • In the latest episode of The Sky at Night, professional astronomer Lucie Green looked into SpaceX’s Starlink project and what the presence of 12,000 satellites could mean for her and fellow scientists

Looking back: The Sky at Night

The lives of stars

INTERACTIVE • Email us at inbox@skyatnightmagazine.com

ON FACEBOOK • WE ASKED: What are you most looking forward to for the rest of 2020?

SCOPE DOCTOR

Sky at Night

WHAT’S ONLINE

PICK OF THE MONTH

FIELD OF VIEW

FIRE in the JOVIAN SKY • As Jupiter reaches opposition this month Will Gater explores the secrets of its enigmatic volcanic moon, Io

Image Jupiter and Io with a high frame rate camera • It takes patience and a clear sky to capture the gas giant and its moon, Io

Building Jupiter’s moons • One of Jupiter’s biggest mysteries is the formation of its large moons

Get ready to observe the RED PLANET • You may be missing bright Venus, but one of the best appearances of Mars is approaching. Pete Lawrence looks ahead to its favourable opposition in October

Unequal oppositions • The Red Planet reaches opposition every few years, but there are also cycles that play out over longer periods of time

JULY HIGHLIGHTS • Your guide to the night sky this month

Family stargazing

NEED TO KNOW • The terms and symbols used in The Sky Guide

THE BIG THREE • The three top sights to observe or image this month

THE PLANETS • Our celestial neighbourhood in July

THE NIGHT SKY – JULY • Explore the celestial sphere with our Northern Hemisphere all-sky chart

MOONWATCH • July’s top lunar feature to observe

COMETS AND ASTEROIDS • Asteroid 2 Pallas reaches opposition in Vulpecula on 13 July

STAR OF THE MONTH • Unukalhai, the brightest star in Serpens

BINOCULAR TOUR • This month’s wide-field survey begins with the eponym of Cepheid variable stars

THE SKY GUIDE CHALLENGE • Can you observe the central white dwarf star in the Ring Nebula, M57?

DEEP-SKY TOUR • We explore the celestial targets around the Butterfly Cluster, M6

AT A GLANCE • How the Sky Guide events will appear in July

HERA Europe’s asteroid mission to defend Earth • With Asteroid Day on 30 June, Sean Blair looks at ESA’s part in a mission that is science fiction made real – to impact a near-Earth object and alter its...