LOOKING UP

Naked eye

The two gas giant planets of our Solar System are now rising in the early evening and visible during the whole night. Jupiter can’t be missed. Look east and its beacon is just under the teapot of Sagittarius. Saturn, a few degrees below Jupiter, is not quite so obvious but still bright.

Binoculars

Low in the northern evening sky lies the small but distinctive constellation of Lyra the Harp. Its signpost, the bright star Vega

(Alpha Lyrae), is next to a narrow rectangle consisting of much fainter stars, fitting in a 5-degree circle.

Small telescope

Well in the plane of the Milky Way in Sagittarius lies the impressive bright nebula M17, known as the Swan Nebula. It has a bright central bar with an obvious shorter section coming off one end, like a tick mark. This forms the bird’s curving neck.