Mercury ends the year on a high as a pre-dawn object during primarily the second half of December.

The observing year comes to a close with a bang as brilliant Jupiter comes to opposition on 7 December. Across the whole of the month the dominant gas giant planet offers its best observing circumstances of the year.

Brilliant and beautiful Venus is an increasingly conspicuous sight soon after sunset.

This eerie, dark silhouette is a cometary globule designated GN 16.43.7.01. Despite their name, cometary globules have nothing to do with comets, beyond having a similar shape of a dusty head with a tail.

In the 1997 movie "Contact," adapted from Carl Sagan's 1985 novel, the lead character, scientist Ellie Arroway, takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star – but no obvious planets are visible. It looks like the filmmakers got it right.

The innocuous visual appearance of the southern constellation of Sculptor, even at far southerly climes, sharply contrasts its true nature as home to some great galaxies, including the magnificent Silver Coin Galaxy.

By teaming up, these two space telescopes have delivered the highest resolution image of IC 2163 and NGC 2207 to date in a combination of mid-infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light.

Messier 103 is an impressive object located in Cassiopeia, Autumn’s home for outstanding open clusters.

The mighty Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies dominate deep-sky observer’s view of our Local Group of Galaxies. If you’re looking for more of a Local Group challenge however, check out Cassiopeia’s IC 10, NGC 147 and NGC 185.

Following month’s of speculation, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) has emerged into the UK’s evening sky as a bright comet in the afterglow of the setting Sun.