What's in the Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight, May 2024

If you're based in the Southern Hemisphere and want to know what you can see in the night sky tonight, this page is for you.

Our monthly-updated night-sky guide will show you what you can see in the Southern Hemisphere over the coming weeks.

We'll include monthly highlights, stars, constellations, planets and deep-sky objects.

For more advice, read our guides to Southern Hemipshere stargazing and the best night-sky targets to see in Australia.

Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight: highlights, June 2024

On 27 June 2024 the eastern Australian mainland will see an occultation of Saturn by the Moon.

The rising Moon conceals the planet, with great views of its reappearance on the dark limb.

Times for the lunar occultation of Saturn in Australia are:

Melbourne: 23:32 (AEST)
Canberra: 23:39 (AEST)
Sydney: 23:41 (AEST)
Brisbane: 23:47 (AEST)
Adelaide: 23:07 (ACST)

Hobart sees a near miss.

Although visible through binoculars, small telescopes will show the rings slowly being revealed, with Saturn’s bright moon Titan popping out two minutes later.

Occultation of the Moon & Saturn by Zlatko Orbanic, Pula, Croatia. Equipment: Astro Tech 80/480, Canon EOS 600D. — Occultation of the Moon and Saturn by Zlatko Orbanic, Pula, Croatia. Equipment: Astro Tech 80/480, Canon EOS 600D.

Stars and constellations

Early evenings in June in the Southern Hemisphere display the grandeur of our Galaxy, with the central hub rising in the east and the southern Milky Way passing overhead and heading west.

With the long winter nights, there isn’t much of the sky not visible to those pushing into the morning hours.

The pre-dawn shows the sky to have transformed to that typically expected from spring/summer evenings, with the Milky Way now hugging the horizon with the Magellanic Clouds high in the south!

The Milky Way by Jonathan Green, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand. Equipment: Canon 60Da, Samyang 14mm Lens

Planets

The drought of planets continues until the end of June, when Saturn is rising before midnight, followed by Neptune around an hour later.

Mars is next on the agenda, rising around 03:00 mid-month in a barren part of the sky in Pisces.

Uranus rises around 05:00 mid-month, followed by Jupiter which rises before dawn by month’s end.

Here’s a challenge: low in the dawn 5 June, Mercury, heading towards conjunction, passes Jupiter (0.6° apart) near the thin crescent Moon. Binoculars recommended.

The Virgo Cluster by Rob Little, Corbridge, UK. Equipment: ATIK 383L CCD, Badder 36mm RGB and Ha filters, Borg 77 EDII APO, NEQ6 mount.

Deep-sky objects

Virgo is famous for the Virgo/Coma cluster of galaxies, but there are some fine galaxies in the eastern end of the constellation that aren’t associated with this group.

NGC 5746 (RA 14h 44.9m, dec. +01° 57’) is easy to find just 0.3° west of the fourth-magnitude star 109 Virginis.

This brilliant mag. +10.3 edge-on spiral has a bright, elongated central core (1 x 2 arcminutes) with a faint needle-like halo extending from the ends (running north to south) approaching 7 arcminutes long.

Next up, two bright 10th-magnitude elliptical galaxies.

From 109 Virginis, move 3.7° east to NGC 5813 with an oval-shaped halo (2 x 1.5 arcminutes) that brightens to a non-stellar nucleus.

A further 1.3° east finds NGC 5846, with a bright, condensed circular halo (1.5 arcminutes) and prominent core. A dozen fainter galaxies are within 1.5° of NGC 5846.