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 • Join us for some stargazing under beautiful dark skies

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

BBC Sky at Night

This month's contributors

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DUST TO DUST • As this massive star dies, its cosmic dust holds the ingredients out of which new planets may form

Artemis II on track for 2024 • The first woman should set foot on the Moon the following year

Asteroid Ryugu rich with life-giving chemicals • Organic molecules found in first full sample returned directly from an asteroid

Billion-galaxy map now even bigger • The sky chart for cosmology will help many other space fields too

Radio astronomy needs satellites protection

NEWS IN BRIEF

Life could exist on locked planets • A ring of temperate climate may offer a habitable haven

Early galaxies have seen many stars

DART was bang on target • The asteroid-deflecting DART mission worked with incredible accuracy

Blowing bubbles in the early Universe • Do infant galaxies work together to clear the hydrogen around them?

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT • In April's Sky at Night, chemist Mark Sephton revealed how we'II look for signs of Martian life in samples collected by Perseverance

Looking back: The Sky at Night • 18 May 1977

The Sky at Night MAY

INTERACTIVE

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

BBC Sky at Night

WHAT'S ON

PICK OF THE MONTH

The trip of my dreams • Scout Simon Shemetilo won a VIP visit to a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral

Capturing THE MAGNIFICENT Milky Way • Get ready for the return of late summer nights under the stars as Will Gater presents a beginners' guide to photographing our ever-changing home Galaxy

The riddle of the HYPERGIANTS • New research is uncovering the weird workings of the largest stars in the Universe, explains Colin Stuart

How big is a hypergiant? • The staggering size of these largest of stars is hard to comprehend

Four hypergiant stars to find • Focus your scope on these bright, giant oddities of the Universe

How can we see the afterglow of the Big Bang? • Govert Schilling continues to explain some of cosmology's most confusing concepts

Cosmic treasure trove • Leftover radiation from the explosion is key to unlocking the Universe around us

RARE ENCOUNTER • Jupiter gets a close daylight visit from the Moon, an occulation for some

MAY 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

Venus at dichotomy • BEST TIME TO SEE: 25 May-14June

2023's NLC season • BEST TIME TO SEE: Last week in May through to early August

THE PLANETS • Our celestial neighbourhood in May

The planets in May • The phase and relative sizes of the planets this month. Each planet is shown with south at the top, to show its orientaion through a telescope

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

MOONWATCH • May's top lunar feature to observe

COMETS AND ASTEROIDS • Follow main belt asteroid 11 Parthenope as it tracks westward beneath Ophiuchus

STAR OF THE MONTH • Diadem, the bright trinket in a queen's...