Southern Hemisphere night sky tonight, January 2025

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

Mars at Opposition by Matt Watson, Sydney, Australia. Equipment: Takahashi Mewlon 250, Losmandy G11, ZWO ASI174MM mono, Baader RGB filters, A Televue 3x Barlow — Mars at Opposition by Matt Watson, Sydney, Australia.

Mars is at opposition on 16 January. While not as close to Earth as some oppositions, it still appears around double (14 arcseconds) its typical size.

Even small scopes under high power and good seeing will show some shadowy features, the locations of plains, valleys, mountains and a polar cap.

To the unaided eye, it’s redder and brighter than normal, rivalling the brightest star, Sirius. Watch Mars approach then pass stars Castor and Pollux in the northern evening sky this month.

Stars and constellations

High in the northern evening sky is the heavens’ brightest star, Sirius. Being close to the celestial equator, this ‘Dog Star’ (Alpha (α) Canis Majoris) can be seen from most places on Earth.

However, Southern Hemisphere dwellers have the second-brightest, Canopus, to themselves.

Located 36° south of Sirius, this luminary, along with the nearby False Cross asterism, are great signposts to the amazing Milky Way regions of Carina, Vela and Puppis, now returning to the evening sky.

The Planets

15 - Venus and Jupiter conjunction Zdenek Bardon, La Silla, Chile, 26 November 2019 Equipment: Nikon D810A DSLR camera — Venus and Jupiter conjunction by Zdenek Bardon, La Silla, Chile, 26 November 2019

The abundance of planets in the evening Southern Hemisphere sky continues, including luminous Venus still dominating the western sky, setting around 22:00.

Saturn and Neptune follow closely, both departing within an hour after.

Early evening finds Uranus and Jupiter both transiting, an ideal time to observe these outer planets. Mars is rising around sunset and visible all night.

Innermost world Mercury can be seen low in the eastern dawn before being lost to the solar glare in the last week of January.

Deep-sky

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

This month, we take a cruise down Eridanus, the River. One of the two-dozen fourth-magnitude stars making up this meandering stream is Tau⁴ (τ⁴) Eridani (RA 3h 19.5m, dec. –21° 46’), a brilliant multiple star.

Its mag. +4.0 orange primary star has two main companions of mag. + 9.5 and +10.8, 5.9 and 39 arcseconds away, respectively. The brighter pair will need some power (150x) to resolve.

Panning 1.6° east, you’ll discover galaxy NGC 1332. This mag. +10.5 lenticular has a bright stellar nucleus, within a prominent, slightly oval core that fades quickly into a featureless halo (2.5 x 1 arcminutes).

Returning to Tau⁴, make a hop of 2.3° north to the galaxy NGC 1300. This 10th-magnitude face-on barred spiral shows an oval core extending into a narrow fainter bar (4 arcminutes long) surrounded by a mottled halo (5 x 3 arcminutes).