Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight

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.

Highlights

Two meteor showers are expected to peak around 30 July, when the Moon is at first quarter.

The Alpha Capricornids, from the direction of Capricornus, are known for bright, slow meteors with long paths and frequent fireballs

And the Southern Delta Aquariids, appearing from the direction of Aquarius, tend to be faint, typically white with some blue members and occasionally leaving trains.

Their radiants will be high in the northern sky in the early morning.

A waxing crescent Moon above Mercury in the evening sky. Credit: Pete Lawrence

June and July see Mercury making its best evening return for 2025 in the Southern Hemisphere.

After emerging from behind the Sun in early June as a fully lit 5-arcsecond disc, it’s visible low in the twilight by mid-June, showing a phase like a gibbous Moon.

At month’s end, the disc has grown to 7.5 arcseconds with a quarter Moon shape.

During July, Mercury heads towards inferior conjunction as it grows to around 11 arcseconds, looking like a fingernail sliver as it is returns to the twilight glow.

Mullinger Milky Way John Carter, South Australia, 30 June. Equipment: Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera, Samyang 12mm lens. — Mullinger Milky Way by John Carter, South Australia

Stars and constellations

Evenings sees the richest parts of the Milky Way pass overhead.

It’s not visible from suburbia, but can be traced by bright asterisms like Sagittarius’s Teapot and Scorpius’s scorpion.

Closing the gap to the pointers and Southern Cross is the bat-shaped Ara (south of the scorpion’s tail), preceded by the triangle of Triangulum Australe.

Further west (south of Crux) is the trapezium of Musca. These constellations are comprised of mag. +2
to mag. +4 stars; binoculars will help.

Southern Cross. Credit: CEDIC Team Walter Herbert, CCDGuide.com

Planets

Mercury concludes a favourable evening return, dropping into the twilight glare in the last week of July.

Mars is soon lost from the evening sky being low in the northwest, departing around 21:00.

Saturn and Neptune are now visible before midnight, rising around 23:00 mid-month and transiting late morning.

The beacon of Venus arrives in the predawn, taking a prominent place above the northeast horizon. Jupiter returns to the morning, spending July in the eastern dawn glow.

Globular cluster NGC 6397, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Deep sky

This month, a trip to Ara, starting with the impressive globular cluster, NGC 6397 (RA 17h 40.7m, dec. –53° 40’).

At mag. +5.9, it’s considered the fifth-brightest globular in the sky!

Reasonable power (100x) gives stunning views of this loosely packed globular, revealing a 10-arcminute halo brightening to a brilliant 2-arcminute core. Lines of stars radiate from the centre.

NGC 6397 is found in the same binocular field as Beta (β) Arae. Just 1° from Beta is Gamma (γ) Arae, its stars distinctly yellow and white.

Here’s an easy galaxy to find: NGC 6221 (RA 16h 52.7m, dec. -59° 13’) is just 0.4° east of naked-eye (mag. +4) star Eta (η)Arae.

Although 10th magnitude, this peculiar face-on spiral has a low surface brightness, appearing as a 2-arcminute, slightly oval, featureless halo embedded in an impressive rich star field.

Southern Hemisphere Star Charts

Access this month's and all previous star charts for the Southern Hemisphere by clicking on the links below.

Best things to see in the Southern Hemisphere sky, July 2025

Highlights

Stars and constellations

Planets

Deep sky

Southern Hemisphere Star Charts

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