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 • Discover the workings of the endlessly intriguing aurorae

Sky at Night - lots of ways to enjoy the night sky…

Sky at Night

This month's contributors

Extra content ONLINE

LAGOON SHOW • A star cluster embedded in a nebula makes for a smoky spectacle

Significant rise in light pollution • Number of stars visible by eye has dropped by 10 percent in a decade

JWST confirms its first exoplanet • New world is almost exactly the same size as Earth

Tim Peake retires from active duty • The astronaut will dedicate his time to outreach and education

Distant radio galaxy observed for the first time

NEWS IN BRIEF

Milky Way is special after all • Simulations suggest our Galaxy is surprisingly massive

Close black holes lie side by side

lo's molten heart • Jupiter's moon probably has a magma ocean, rather than a spongy centre

Ancient explosion was a rare supernova • Astronomers have puzzled over the bright event for centuries

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT • On the 100th anniversary of Patrick Moore's birth, Chris Lintott remembers the time they spent together on the set of The Sky at Night

Looking back: The Sky at Night • 4 April 1979

Searching Space

INTERACTIVE

SCOPE DOCTOR • Our equipment specialist cures your optical ailments and technical maladies With Steve Richards

Sky at Night

WHAT'S ON

PICK OF THE MONTH • Various venues, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, 9-21 March

Finding poetry in the Northern Lights • Caroline Burrows on the verses that captured the sky-spectacle down the ages

Dancing lights from space | INVESTIGATING THE AURORAE • The aurorae are as beautiful as they are mysterious. Maria-Theresia Walach explains what we know about the creation of these ever-changing light shows

Colours of the aurora • The colourful hues of the aurora come from our atmosphere's composition

How to find the aurora • To see the beautiful aurora, you first have to hunt them down

Venus observing the Evening Star • As our nearest neighbour returns to the skies, Paul Abel tells us how to get a closer look at this enigmatic world

Orbits and elongations • Like the Moon, Venus appears to go through phases as it moves across the night sky

Watching Venus • Filters and a logbook will help you track the planet's changing face

The Schröter effect • Venus's phases are odd - what we actually see is out of step with the predicted timings

Venus in infrared • Several scientifically intriguing features become visible at longer wavelengths

The ashen light • No one knows for sure why some report seeing a ghostly glow lighting up the planet's dark side

Ultraviolet cloud-watching • Track the speedy Venusian atmosphere by imaging the motion of cloud formations

How is the Universe so big? • Your questions answered as Govert Schilling continues to explain cosmology's most confusing concepts

Telescopes as time machines • Distant galaxies give us windows into the past

VENUS MEETS JUPITER • Catch the spectacular dose encounter of two bright planets on 1 March

MARCH 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 top sights to observe or image this month

Mars passes M35 •...