A Night Sky Guide for Aotearoa
In December, the Milky Way begins to edge back into the evening sky. The longest day approaches, Jupiter shines again after sunset, and Saturn is slowly gathering its rings as summer settles in. And in tune with the festive season, the skyglow really fills the sky with red and green.
Alpha & Omega.
Here’s a photo of Sam and our two telescopes Darth Vader and Princess Leia at Star Safari. The bright star on top of his right hand is Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbouring system. The bright dot above Darth Vader is Omega Centauri, a most exceptional globular cluster of 15,000,000 stars. Photo: Star Safari
The longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice, arrives on Monday, 22 December 2025 at 4:02 am — a very early start to the week. It marks the peak of sunlight in the Southern Hemisphere and the official beginning of astronomical summer.
It also gives us the shortest night of the year, which means the least time for stargazing. By the time you take the telescopes and cameras out, you’re already preparing to drag them back in. The sky barely gets dark enough before dawn starts creeping back again.
No, 3I/Atlas is not a UFO. It’s a comet — a very old one — quietly minding its own business as it hurtles through the Solar System at around 250,000 km/h. On 19 December, it drifts past at about 1.8 AU (roughly 210 million kilometres). Close enough to talk about, far too far to blame for anything.
Everyone is keeping an eye on it… even Professor Loeb, just in case it offers him a lift.
Mercury is in the morning sky — the early riser of the Solar System, for those who are also early risers.
Jupiter sits in Gemini, just below Taurus, which means it rises soon after sunset. Bright, steady, and making itself very easy to find.
Saturn, in Aquarius, is already more than halfway across the sky by the time darkness settles. It glows a gentle yellow, doing its best to look dignified.
Every other bright planet is currently lost in the glare of the Sun, taking an enforced holiday.
Uranus (in Taurus) and Neptune (in Pisces) are technically up there too, but you’ll need to know exactly where to look — and bring binoculars or a telescope — unless you enjoy staring meaningfully into the void and hoping for the best.
The Sun wakes up a bit early in December — around 5 am — and doesn’t bother setting until after 9 pm. This is excellent news for beachgoers and solar-panel owners, and slightly less excellent for anyone hoping for darkness.
December also brings the Summer Solstice (22 December), the moment the Sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky. You won’t notice this for several weeks, but it does make the astronomers feel better.
This is the time of year when the Milky Way kindly reminds us that Star Safari really is on a working farm.
Because up there, in the stars, we currently have a dog, a cow, and a sheep — and at the start of the month, a bit of a horse too. A perfectly reasonable night’s work for any New Zealand farm.
Start by turning west. You’ll still see the last traces of the Sun’s glare — the brightest patch of sky after sunset. (If you’re ever unsure where west is, just look for the light pollution that isn’t a town.)
Now turn left, as one does in the Southern Hemisphere after sunset.
First, you’ll see the familiar Fish in the Frypan — the Southern Cross, the Pointers, and a scattering of Centaurus. Turn left a little more, and you’ll meet the upside-down dog: Canis Major, the faithful farm dog having a good stretch on its back.
Keep turning, and the three stars of Orion’s Belt come into view. The leftmost star, Mintaka, happens to sit right on the celestial equator, so when it rises, it marks true East. Mintaka and its sisters — Alnilam and Alnitak — form the famous pot. Or the shopping trolley, depending on your level of optimism.
Turn left again, and you’ll reach the cow — or more accurately, Taurus the Bull, also upside down, probably enjoying a back scratch on the sky.
Next along is the sheep, Aries the Ram, modest and tidy as always.
And finally, the Great Square of Pegasus — the last stop in the Milky Way parade — because no respectable New Zealand farm is complete without at least one horse, even though by now some of it has set.
In the circumpolar region, the Frypan is back — properly back. It wasn’t actually gone anywhere; it just sat on the horizon, like a pan on a stove. But because it’s higher now, we can see what’s in it better. The Southern Cross is the fish in the pan, and to the left, you’ll find the Diamond Cross and the False Cross keeping it company.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is easy to spot now, along with its show-off neighbour, the Tarantula Nebula — a giant star-forming region in another galaxy, which feels slightly unfair given how well it performs at this distance.
Swing your eyes across, and you’ll meet Canopus, glowing confidently above the southern horizon from 316 light-years away, the second-brightest star in the night sky.
Higher still is the Small Magellanic Cloud with 47 Tucanae, the second-largest globular cluster in the sky. It packs nearly two million stars into a space that, from Earth, sits in the same line of sight as our friendly satellite galaxy. It’s a proper “wow” object — even through binoculars.
Orion
These guides don’t change each month — they’re your evergreen reference library. Perfect for beginners discovering the NZ night sky for the first time, or regulars who want a quick refresher.
Whether high overhead or hugging the horizon or anything in between, the Milky Way is always there. The reason we can’t always see it is … LIGHT POLLUTION! Even though the light pollution in question sometimes comes from our lovely Moon*.
The part of the Milky Way that will always be in our southern sky is the beautiful region of Vela, Carina and Puppis, as well as the Southern Cross. These stars are circumpolar.
By definition, our galaxy is the sum of about 100 billion stars (NASA; ESA). Our Solar System sits about two-thirds of the way from its center, so we see this vast collection of stars as a glowing band across the sky crossed by long dark lines. Some of these stars are bright enough to resolve (stargazer slang for ‘distinguish’) with the unaided eye, while others reveal their detail through binoculars or telescopes.
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*Yet, even under a full Moon, you can still glimpse the Milky Way from Star Safari—faint, but definitely there!
The Circumpolar Region is that part of the sky we always see from our latitude here in Aotearoa. It contains some of the most spectacular objects visible in the entire sky.
The Milky Way intersects the circumpolar region in the Carina-Crux region.
Famous New Zealand asterisms in there are: The Fish in the Frying Pan, The Diamond Cross, and the False Cross.
In addition, the bright stars Canopus and Achernar are also circumpolar from New Zealand, as are the Magellanic Clouds, our pet galaxies.
Stars in the circumpolar region neither rise nor set; they continuously circle the celestial pole, completing one full rotation in 23 hours and 56 minutes. This means that at the same hour each night, they appear slightly shifted compared to the previous night, gradually changing their position over the course of the year.
As the Earth and the other planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun, they do so almost in the same plane – this is called the ecliptic. From our point of view on Earth, this looks like a band of about 8 degrees in the sky, which is smaller than the width of your fist held at arm’s length. The stars that are visible behind the path of the planets are the Zodiacal Constellations, they form the Zodiacal Band.
Mercury and Venus, being close to the Sun, are only visible just after sunset or just before sunrise—never in the middle of the night. Their elongation, distance from the Sun, is always less than half the sky.
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune can appear at any time of the night, depending on their position in their orbits.
Uranus and Neptune are too dim to be seen with the unaided eye, requiring binoculars or a telescope. In fact, their faintness kept them hidden until they were identified as planets—Uranus on 13 March 1781 and Neptune on 23 September 1846.
Media often sensationalizes these events, but in reality, they are regular occurrences without significant impact**. The planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun in roughly the same plane, known as the ecliptic, with orbital inclinations typically within a few degrees of each other. For instance, Mercury has the largest inclination at about 7 degrees. Given this arrangement, alignments of planets are natural and frequent phenomena and most times rather than not we will see the planets in an arch across the sky.
Not all planets are visible at one given time, always: some are in the morning sky, some are in the evening sky and some are hiding behind the Sun.
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**Except for the famous planetary alignment that led to the launch the Voyagers.
The Voyager mission took advantage of a rare planetary alignment in the late 1970s and 1980s, enabling a four-planet tour—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—with minimal fuel and time. This alignment, occurring once every 175 years, allowed the spacecraft to use gravity assists instead of large onboard propulsion (NASA).
The best time to see satellites is just after sunset or before sunrise. Why? Because of the angle at which light falls onto them.
UFOs: Unidentified? Not for Long!
Every stargazing night, someone inevitably spots a mysterious moving light and whispers, “What was the weirdest thing you guys have seen?” And even with more than 12,000+ satellites orbiting above us, the answer is usually, “No, that’s just Elon Musk’s space WiFi.”
But let’s not ruin all the fun—because historically, UFO sightings have ranged from military test flights to overenthusiastic birds reflecting city lights. The real trick is knowing what’s actually up there:
🛰 Satellites – They glide steadily across the sky, sometimes in long trains (looking at you, Starlink).
🔥 Space junk re-entry – They can make for a good light show, but they look more like a match catching on fire rather than an alien invasion.
☄️ Meteors – Quick, bright streaks that don’t hover, so if it’s zooming and gone in a flash, you’re probably safe from abduction.
🛸 Actual UFO? – Well… statistically unlikely, but if they do land in NZ, make sure to ask them “So… what did you get up to in the weekend?” That should send them straight back to their spacecraft.
Is stargazing a hobby? Turn your passion into science!
The best way to learn the night sky is to observe it—and you can also contribute to science! Globe at Night is a citizen science project where you count stars in specific constellations to help track light pollution worldwide.
The Night Sky Monthly series from Milky-Way.Kiwi shares what’s above Aotearoa each month — the stars, the planets, and the odd deep-sky treasure. It’s written from the Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve, which Lonely Planet recently called one of the world’s top stargazing experiences.
