Each Monday, I pick out North America's celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also apply to mid-northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere). Check my main feed for more in-depth articles on stargazing, astronomy, eclipses and more.

This week's stargazing highlights include perfectly dark, moonless nights for stargazing, a possible view of Mercury in the morning sky and Venus in the evening sky, a crescent moon, and Saturn at its biggest and brightest. Here's everything you need to know about the night sky this week:

At 8:55 p.m. EDT, today is every stargazer's favorite moment of the month -- the new moon. This lunar phase sees the moon roughly between the Earth and the sun, making the moon invisible but the night skies free from moonlight. That makes tonight the very best of the month for stargazing, though in practice, the entire week is near-perfect beforehand (and a few days after) is perfect. In the coming evenings, a crescent moon will appear after sunset.

Look west immediately after sunset to see a super-slim 1%-lit crescent moon. It will be a tough find -- you will likely need binoculars.

Today, Mercury reaches its greatest western elongation, meaning the "Swift Planet" will appear above the eastern horizon instead of being lost in the sun's glare. It will become visible in a clear sky about 30 minutes before sunrise. Expect a reddish dot close to the horizon.

Now 3%-lit, the waxing crescent moon will be more easily visible in the western sky. Look about 30 minutes after sunset. You'll see the beautiful sight of bright Venus, shining at magnitude -3.9, above the left of the crescent moon.

A brightening 7%-lit waxing crescent moon will be visible in the western sky just after sunset, this time to the left of a bright Venus. The moon's dark limb will display "Earthshine" -- sunlight reflected from our planet's oceans and ice caps onto the lunar surface. It's just strong enough to subtly illuminate the moon's limb.

Here's a final chance to see this month's waxing crescent moon, now 13%-lit and visible in the western sky just after sunset, before it gets really bright. As well as spotting Earthshine again, you'll see a bright star just to the moon's right. That's Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo and about 250 light-years distant.

Saturn is tonight the biggest, brightest and best placed it gets during 2024. A planet's opposition occurs when Earth passes between it and the sun. Since Saturn takes 29.4 years to orbit the sun and Earth just a year, this must happen once every 378 days/54 weeks. The sixth planet from the sun will be well-positioned, shining brightly for the next few weeks, and, crucially, visible all night. If there's one "wow" astronomy moment everyone remembers, it's their first look at Saturn through a telescope. If you can get near any telescope this summer, this week is perfect.

What's the biggest thing in the solar system? This month is the ideal time to see something subtle yet spectacular, but you'll need to be somewhere truly dark in the northern hemisphere. Look to the western sky about an hour before sunrise -- just above where the sun is about to appear -- and see a triangular glow. Known as a "false dawn," this so-called zodiacal light is sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust left in the solar system. Astronomers think it's from passing asteroids and comets, the dusty leftovers of the planets forming, or "Mars Light."