All articles tagged with #stargazing
Space.com reports the Lyrid meteor shower peaks overnight April 21–22 with as many as ~18 meteors per hour. The radiant lies near Lyra’s Vega and the debris comes from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). The shower runs April 16–25, best seen in dark, predawn skies away from light pollution after the Moon sets; give your eyes 20–30 minutes to adapt and consider red-light use for viewing and photography.
Tonight after sunset (March 30), look northeast to spot the Big Dipper. Use its bowl-to-handle arc to guide your gaze to Arcturus, then follow up to Spica for another bright spring star—a quick, naked-eye sky-navigation trick ideal for learning the spring constellations; binoculars help reveal fainter stars if you want a closer look.
Live Science’s April 2026 stargazing gear guide suggests the best cameras, binoculars, and telescopes to enjoy this month’s sky events, including the Full Pink Moon, the Lyrid meteor shower, and two bright comets (C/2026 A1 MAPS and C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS). It highlights a dark-sky window around the new moon on April 17 for deep-sky observing and astro-photography, and offers practical gear picks and tips for lunar, planetary, and galaxy observing.
Tonight, March 26, 2026, the night sky features a 57%-illuminated Moon near Jupiter in Gemini after dark, with Sirius below and Castor and Pollux nearby—an accessible, binocular-friendly skywatching highlight.
Look east at sunset on March 26 to see Jupiter near a waxing Moon; the Moon–Jupiter close approach occurs at 9:19 PM EDT (1319 GMT), with Jupiter about 5 degrees to the lower-right of the Moon. The pairing is best viewed from the northern hemisphere and remains visible through the evening, with Jupiter staying prominent in the spring sky until solar conjunction in July. A small telescope or binoculars will reveal the Moon’s craters and lunar seas and Jupiter’s cloud bands and moons; for exact rise/set times, check Time and Date for your location.
Tonight (March 25) the first-quarter Moon will glow in the southern sky after dusk, appearing about four degrees from the bright planet Jupiter for a striking nocturnal pairing, while Saturn is approaching solar conjunction and will reappear in the pre-dawn sky in April; observers with binoculars or a telescope can enjoy a classic night-sky setup and learn the Moon’s changing phase as part of ongoing stargazing.
Space.com guides stargazers to see the Pleiades before it vanishes in the spring glow, noting it’s best viewed October–March and will fade toward the horizon by late April; to locate it, use Orion’s Belt as a guide—extend a line from Alnitak through Mintaka past Aldebaran to find the hazy cluster; a pair of 10x50 binoculars or a small telescope reveals dozens of stars, including the seven brightest named after Atlas’s daughters.
After dark on March 24, the Big Dipper rises in the northeastern sky while the Moon sits about 40% illuminated in the southwestern sky; use the Big Dipper’s pointer stars, Merak and Dubhe, to find Polaris in the north, and note the handle points toward Arcturus in the east-northeast as spring skies unfold.
Space.com reports a waxing crescent Moon will skim the Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) tonight and tomorrow (Mar. 22–23), visible in the western sky after sunset about five degrees from the cluster; look for Aldebaran and the Hyades nearby, with Venus near the horizon and Jupiter shining overhead in Gemini. By March 23 the Moon moves above the Pleiades, hinting at another night-sky highlight in the days ahead. A pair of binoculars or a small telescope helps reveal the cluster’s stars.
On March 19, 2026, Venus will guide observers to a razor-thin crescent moon (~1% illuminated) about 20 hours after the new Moon, seen low in the western sky 30–60 minutes after sunset, a rare and brief sight across much of the Northern Hemisphere best viewed from a dark, clear horizon ( binoculars may help ).
Tonight (March 19) after sunset, a slim crescent Moon sits just below Venus in the western sky. Venus will be easy to spot about 30–40 minutes after sunset, while the 1% illumination Moon will be a tricky, binoculars-helped target; if skies aren’t clear, tomorrow’s sighting should be easier.
Live Science highlights early deals in Amazon's Spring Sale 2026 for stargazing gear, including telescopes, binoculars and astrophotography cameras, with notable discounts on models like Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ, NexStar Evolution 9.25, SkyMaster binoculars and Sony A7R V; the sale runs March 25–31, 2026, with editors tracking deals across retailers.
Astrophotographer Emil Andronic spent 69 hours 15 minutes gathering HaLRGB data from the UK to photograph the blue Cederblad 51 reflection nebula near Orion’s head, revealing intricate dust structures amid the surrounding red emission. Using two 8-inch telescopes with RGB and H-alpha filters and cooled cameras, he stacked and processed the data with PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop to produce a detailed image of the nebula and its stellar backdrop.
Spring skies reveal a lineup of galaxies visible from the northern hemisphere, including the Leo Triplet and bright targets like the Sombrero and Whirlpool galaxies. The piece guides readers on star-hopping to locate these faint objects in regions such as Leo, Virgo, and Canes Venatici, and notes that a telescope (6 inches or more) or large binoculars is typically needed for rewarding views under dark skies.
Space.com reports that a fast solar wind is expected to sweep past Earth tonight (March 13), potentially triggering a minor geomagnetic storm and making the northern lights visible across nine U.S. states (Alaska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington, and Maine) if skies are clear. Best viewing is tonight into Saturday, with auroras possibly reaching farther south if conditions strengthen, per NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.