Starwatch night sky events with Bob Mizon MBE of the Wessex Astronomical Society.

If the clouds part on dates around Christmas this year, look south-east in the evenings to find two festive baubles shining together in the winter sky.
The planet Mars has been slowly moving up from the eastern horizon and has now found its way into the foreground of the stars of Taurus the Bull.
The traditional red eye of the Bull (which, according to a Neolithic cave painting in SW France, has been a constellation since the Stone Age) is bright Aldebaran, an ageing, bloated red giant star that forms a neat comparison to the ruddy hue of nearby Mars.
The two are in a busy part of the sky: The V-shaped cluster of the Hyades, in the area, is glorious in binoculars; and above glistens the tight triangular group of the Pleiades, hot, blue young stars just over 400 light years away.
That cave painter of 20,000 years ago captured them too. Clear skies!