Finding Matariki in the Pre-Dawn Sky

Each year, in the cold weeks around midwinter, a small cluster of stars reappears low in the north-eastern sky just before dawn. For many iwi its return, or heliacal rising, marks the start of the Māori new year. Since 2022 Aotearoa has marked it with a public holiday, the first in the country to recognise te ao Māori in this way. This note is about the practical side: where to look and how to be sure you have found it.

A note on respect

Matariki is a living tradition, not just an astronomical event. Knowledge about the stars, their names and what they signify belongs to iwi and hapū, and practices differ around the country. Some iwi observe Puanga (Rigel, in Orion) rather than Matariki, particularly where Matariki is hard to see from home. What follows is simply how to find the cluster in the sky. For the meaning of Matariki, the best sources are local iwi, marae and Māori-led events in your area.

The public holiday

The date of the Matariki public holiday is set in advance by a group of Māori knowledge experts and moves each year with the lunar calendar, landing on a Friday between mid-June and mid-July. MBIE's Matariki public holiday page lists the dates for coming years.

When and where to look

Around late June and through July, Matariki rises shortly before the sun in the east-north-east. In the first days of its return it is very low and sits in the brightening twilight, so it can be genuinely difficult to see. Each morning it rises about four minutes earlier, so by mid-July it is noticeably higher and easier.

What you need:

• A clear, low horizon to the north-east. Hills, trees or buildings will hide it. A beach, headland or open paddock is ideal.
• The right time. Be in position about an hour before sunrise, and start looking about 45 minutes before. Too early and the cluster has not cleared the horizon; too late and the sky is too bright.
• A clear morning. Cold, still winter mornings after a southerly has passed are often the best. Morning fog in valleys and low cloud on the coast are the usual enemies.
• Warm clothes. Midwinter dawns are cold in every part of the country.

Finding it from Taurus and Orion

Matariki is a compact group of stars sometimes mistaken at first glance for a tiny smudge or a faint patch of cloud. Most people with good eyesight see six stars; under a dark sky some see seven or more.

In the pre-dawn of late June, Matariki is the first part of this region of sky to clear the horizon. Look for a tight, slightly misty knot of blue-white stars, small enough to cover with a fingertip at arm's length.

As July goes on, the bright orange star Aldebaran (in Taurus) rises after Matariki, below and to the right of it from our point of view. Later still, the three stars of Orion's belt, known to many here as the bottom of The Pot, climb above the horizon. A line drawn from the belt through Aldebaran and continued about the same distance again leads you straight to Matariki. Once you have the line in your head, the cluster is easy to pick out.

Practise in the evening sky first

If you have never knowingly seen the cluster, a good tip is to learn it months in advance, when it is high and obvious in the evening. From about November to February, Matariki is well up in the northern sky after dark. Find The Pot (Orion, upside-down from our southern view), follow the belt through Aldebaran, and there it is, much easier to identify than in a cold dawn twilight. By April it is sinking into the west at dusk and disappears into the sun's glare by May, before its return in the morning sky.

Planetarium apps such as Stellarium will show you exactly how the sky will look from your location on a given morning, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of planning.

The view in binoculars

Matariki is one of the most beautiful sights in binoculars. A 7x50 or 10x50 pair shows dozens of stars in a field that frames the whole cluster neatly. The brighter members are hot, young blue-white stars, and they really do sparkle. Telescopes, by contrast, often show too narrow a field: the cluster spills out of the eyepiece and loses its shape. Low power is best.

In very long-exposure photographs, the stars are wrapped in faint blue reflection nebulosity. That nebula is almost never visible to the eye at the eyepiece, so don't be disappointed not to see it.

A few numbers

The cluster is roughly 440 light-years away and contains well over a thousand stars, most of them far too faint to see without a telescope. It is young in astronomical terms, perhaps around 100 million years old, which is why the bright members are so hot and blue.

Making a morning of it

Many communities now hold dawn gatherings to welcome Matariki, often with karakia, kai and storytelling, and sometimes with telescopes. If you are able to join one, it is a fine way to see the cluster and to learn from those whose tradition it is. Otherwise, a thermos, a clear horizon and a quiet half hour before sunrise are all it takes.

If you are tempted to go further than binoculars, our guide to choosing a first telescope covers the options, and the long-standing astronomy day page has ideas for getting involved with public events.