The autumn GRAND TOUR
Stargazers always feel a sense of relief and almost liberation when autumn returns. During summer the night sky doesn’t really get dark enough to see all but the brightest stars and deep-sky objects, so after covering up our telescopes we spend the summer months in a kind of enforced astronomical hibernation, watching the lantern-bright International Space Station arc silently across the sky and picking out a bright planet or two on endless twilight nights while crossing our fingers for the northern sky to be painted with a display of noctilucent clouds. But as summer recedes there actually is an ‘after dark’ again, and a lovely selection of stars, globular clusters, galaxies and other beautiful celestial sights slowly comes back into view. Here we’re going to look at some of the best sights to see in the night sky this autumn and how to find them.
Much the same as the Voyager probes famously went on a Grand Tour of the outer Solar System in the 1970s and ’80s, moving from planet to planet, with this feature newcomers to sky-watching and experienced amateur astronomers alike will be able to embark on their own – rather quicker – Grand Tour of the
