When is your star best seen from the UK?

As the Earth goes round the Sun, the night side of the planet faces a different part of the sky. So every star has its season: months when it is high in the evening sky, and months when it is up only in daylight.

Find your star's season

• Tonight: enter your Database Number on our star finder. Your star's page tells you whether it is up now, the best time to see it tonight, how high it will be and which way to face.
• Through the year: the Altitude graph on your Star Area Co-ordinates Sheet shows how high your star is each month. Pick a month where the line is high. How to read your sheet.

UK seasons in brief

• Winter: long, dark nights and crisp air. The best time for most stars, and the easiest for children before bedtime.
• Spring and autumn: good, comfortable evenings once the sky is fully dark.
• Summer: short nights. In Scotland and the north of England the sky barely gets dark around midsummer, so look in the small hours or wait for August.

Give yourself the darkest sky you can

Street lights wash out fainter stars, and most of ours are best in binoculars. Get away from lights where possible, give your eyes 15 to 20 minutes to get used to the dark, and avoid nights around the full Moon. Galloway Forest Park, Exmoor and Northumberland are officially recognised dark sky places, but a field or a beach with no lights in view works wonders too. How bright is your star?