According to northern astro- nomer and columnist David Reneke, two favourite planets rule this month – with special appearances by Saturn and Mars.

“May nights offer the chance to see a planetary parade with two of the best waiting for you, plus no glaring Moon to wash out your skies,” the Australasian Science Magazine writer said.

“It all starts early evening, with the easiest to find, the king of the planets, giant Jupiter nicely placed in the eastern sky just after sunset.” 

“You can’t miss it because it’s the brightest object in that part of the sky. In a telescope Jupiter is a bright cream-coloured ball with faint red or brown bands. Small telescopes will show Jupiter’s four brightest moons.

“Around mid-evening Saturn is rising in the southeast. Saturn is a masterpiece in almost any telescope. The rings are easily visible, as are a handful of its 62 brightest moons. It’s the planet that hooks more people on astronomy than any other.“

Saturn is the lightest of all the planets.

“If you had an ocean big enough, Saturn would actually float,” Mr Reneke said. 

Viewing Saturn for the first time through a telescope will be a life changing event for stargazers, he forecasts.

Meanwhile, there are close encounters this month with the red planet, Mars.

Mr Reneke said every two years, Mars puts on a show in the evening sky as it reaches a point in its orbit called “opposition”,  when the planet lies opposite the Sun in our sky. 

“This means it rises near sunset and remains visible all night long,” he said. 

But this time around, there’s something extra special to see.

“Mars rises earlier each night after sundown and is now situated in the easily identifiable constellation of Scorpius, or the Scorpion,” he said.

“It appears bigger and brighter than ever before this month, giving the best views of the red planet in more than 10 years.

“Its brilliance outshines everything in the sky, except the Moon.”

He suggests we look for a radiant reddish “star” in the south-eastern sky – that’s Mars, and it even outshines the brightest star, Sirius. 

And the distance between Earth and Mars is shrinking by about 300 kilometres every minute.

“By month’s end the distance between us narrows to only 75.3 million kilometres, a small number on the vast scale of the solar system, but a seven-month flight for NASA’s speediest rockets. 

“That’s close enough to spot the  surface markings and polar caps!”

 Even in a small telescope, it appears larger than it has since 2005. 

Any clear night in May is a good time to look at Mars.

Mr Reneke says it will be easy to see with the unaided eye, even from brightly lit cities. 

Earth is nine times as massive and nearly twice as wide as Mars. From Mars, the Sun appears only 50 per ent as bright as it does from Earth.