Why 2026 is going to be a great year for star-gazers

There's "something really wonderful going on" in the night skies above Aotearoa this summer, says astronomer Dr Ian Griffin, with more dazzling cosmic events to come this year.

Griffin, who is head of Dunedin's Tūhura Otago Museum, has been spending his summer holiday in Middlemarch, an hour from Dunedin, enjoying New Zealand’s crystal-clear night skies.

The planet Jupiter is currently about as close to Earth as it gets, he told RNZ’s Summer Times.

“About an hour or so after sunset, you'll see this really stonkingly bright, yellowy thing rising in the northeastern sky and that is actually the planet Jupiter.

“And as it gets higher in the sky, if you've got a pair of binoculars, you can point them at it, and you should be able to see its four moons as little dot points of light on either side of the planet."

With a telescope, or even a pair of binoculars, trained on the planet you can see more detail, he says.

“Jupiter is a brilliant thing to look at because you can see its belt and it rotates very quickly once every 10 hours and it's got these wonderful cloud belts that are festoons of gas.”

Turn around and you'll see Saturn on the other side of the sky. While the planet is currently visible in the western sky, its rings can't be seen.

“If you've ever seen Saturn through a telescope, you will never forget it because it looks completely unreal," Griffin says.

"You get this lovely little spot of light surrounded by these beautiful rings. But at the moment, Saturn's ring system has actually disappeared because we're viewing it from the edge.”

As well as the planets, a constellation in the northern sky, Orion the Hunter, is visible at this time of year, says Griffin.

“It's really distinctive, it's got these three belt stars in a line and you really can't miss it. If you go out after sunset, look in the northern sky and you'll see these three stars in the line, very obvious.

“Now if you've got a pair of binoculars, if you scan above those stars, you'll see a little fuzzy patch of light through the binoculars and that little fuzzy patch of light is called the Orion Nebula and it's one of the most amazing things you can see in the sky because it's the place where stars are being born and you can see these clouds of gas and you can see these bright stars kind of condensing from it.”

As well as watching the birth of stars, we can see their various colours, he says. Again, the Constellation Orion is where to train your binoculars.

“The sun, our star, is sort of a yellowish white colour and its surface is around 6,000 degrees but when you look at Betelgeuse, this kind of red star, it's much cooler than the sun, it's only about 3,000 degrees.

“And then at the other end of the constellation Orion, there's a blue star called Rigel and that blue colour tells us it's much hotter than the sun, about 10 or 20,000 degrees.”

In the coming months there is much for star gazers to enjoy, he says.

“In March, there's a lovely eclipse of the moon on the 3rd to the 4th of March, a total eclipse of the moon. So, the moon will rise and then suddenly go really dark and red. And that will be one of the highlights of the year.

“And then later in April and May, there's a chance we might get another naked-eye comet in the sky. So, I'm quite looking forward to that. It's definitely a year to look forward to.”

Whether using the “Mark I eyeball” or binoculars, some "really wonderful things" can be seen in our night skies anywhere in New Zealand away from the cities, he says.

“Scanning the sky this time of year is one of the great things that you can do, find yourself a really comfortable deck chair, sit back and just explore away.”