Night sky over Sydney
The page stands in Sydney (33.9° S, 151.2° E) and looks up at tonight's sky over it: by day its clock starts at Sydney's dusk, so the Moon, the planets and the bright stars are where they will be once it's dark there, with the satellites in sunlight crossing between them.
The list below says tonight over Sydney in words, worked out as the page is served: sunset and when it gets dark on Sydney's clock (Australia/Sydney), the Moon's phase and when it's up, and for each planet when it rises or sets, how high it climbs and where to face, with the next meteor shower.
Tonight over Sydney, Mon 2 Nov
- Sunsets , dark from to , rises
- Moonlast quarter, 44% lit: rises in the ENE, 26° up in the NE by dawn
- Marsrises in the ENE, 27° up in the NE by dawn · magnitude 0.9, in Leo
- Jupiterrises in the ENE, 26° up in the NE by dawn · magnitude −2.0, in Leo
- Saturn41° up in the NE at dusk, highest at , 55° up in the N, sets in the W · magnitude 0.4, in Cetus
- Not seen tonightMercury, Venus: below the horizon or too low while the sky is dark
- Leonidsthe next meteor shower, peaking around 17 Nov at up to 15 meteors an hour under a dark sky, best from anywhere, before dawn
Times on Sydney's clock (GMT+11), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
Sydney, at 33.9° south, looks north for the planets: the ecliptic arcs across the northern half of its sky, and the Moon appears upside down to a northern visitor. Southward is the far southern sky, where the Southern Cross, its two Pointers and both Magellanic Clouds never set, circling the south celestial pole all night.
Sydney Observatory, on Observatory Hill above The Rocks since 1858, opens its telescopes on evening tours. The Blue Mountains, two hours west, are darker than the coast, and the Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran, beside Siding Spring Observatory, became Australia’s first Dark Sky Park in 2016.
Questions
Can you see the Magellanic Clouds from Sydney?
Not from the city, where the lights hide them, but from the Blue Mountains or the coast past the suburbs they show as two pale smudges in the south, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. They’re circumpolar from Sydney, up every night of the year.
When is the Milky Way best seen from Sydney?
Autumn and winter evenings, March to August, when its brightest part, toward Sagittarius and Scorpius, swings high overhead after dark. Winter is drier in Sydney too, with more clear nights than the humid, stormy summer.
Why does the Moon look upside down in Sydney?
Because you’re facing north to see it, standing on the other side of the globe from the northern hemisphere: its face is turned round, and a crescent tilts the other way. The sky view draws it that way, lit from the real Sun.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=featured&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&view=sky&lat=-33.87&lon=151.21&tonight=1
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
