Tonight in London
A properly dark night.
Properly dark 21:16–04:36 · 7h 20m
waxing crescent · 5% lit · 7h 20m of moon-free darkness
How we’d play it
A genuinely dark window — galaxies and nebulae are on the menu, and Saturn and Mars are well-placed for the eyepiece. The kind of night we plan a full session around.
Plan a night with us →Worth looking at
- SaturnBest 02:19Well-placed in the small hours (around 02:19) — 41° in the south.
- MarsBest 04:36Well-placed in the east — 32° just before dawn (04:36), still rising as the sky brightens.
- JupiterBest 04:36Low in the east, still climbing when the sky brightens at 04:36 — only 12°.
Venus is below the horizon whenever the sky is dark.
Twilight stages & sun times +
- Sunset19:19
- Civil twilight ends19:53
- Nautical twilight ends20:33
- Fully dark21:16
- First light04:36
- Nautical twilight (dawn)05:19
- Civil twilight (dawn)05:59
- Sunrise06:33
All times BST (local). Moon-free windows: 21:16–04:36.
Not tonight?
Darker nights suit galaxies and nebulae. The Moon thins out toward the end of the week.
Coming up
- Orionids meteor showerWed 21 October · Peak night. Halley’s Comet again, ~20/hour.in 6 weeks
- Leonids meteor showerTue 17 November · Peak night. Fast and bright, ~15/hour.in 9 weeks
- Geminids meteor showerMon 14 December · Peak night. The year’s best — up to ~120/hour, bright and slow.in 13 weeks
- Quadrantids meteor showerSun 3 January · Peak night. Sharp peak, up to ~40/hour — brief but rich.in 16 weeks
Show full detail
We bring the telescope, and we read the sky for you — so the night lands on the right hour.
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