US night-sky calendar, October 2026 to April 2027

How to use this calendar

This calendar covers late October 2026 through April 2027 for photographers in the lower 48 states. Clock times are local unless a zone is given; single instants, such as a shower peak or an eclipse, are given in Eastern time and, where it helps, in other zones.

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov 1, 2026, and starts again at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 14, 2027. Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time all year (the Navajo Nation excepted), so in winter it matches Denver and from mid-March the Pacific coast. Hawaii doesn't change its clocks.

Plan around the Moon first. New Moons fall on Nov 9, Dec 8, Jan 7, Feb 6, March 8 and April 6 (Eastern time), and the nights around them are the darkest of each month. Full Moons fall on Oct 26 (still the evening of Oct 25 in Central, Mountain and Pacific time), Nov 24, Dec 23, Jan 22, Feb 20, March 22 and April 20.

Late October 2026

• Oct 21–22, Orionids: the peak falls on the afternoon of Oct 21 in US time, so watch the night of Oct 21–22. A waxing gibbous Moon about 80 percent lit sets between about 2 and 4 a.m. local time; shoot from moonset until dawn, and expect fewer than 20 meteors an hour.
• Oct 26: full Moon (the Hunter's Moon), at 12:12 a.m. EDT, still the evening of Oct 25 farther west.
• Before dawn, until about early November: the zodiacal light, a faint cone of light rising from the eastern horizon. It needs a truly dark sky and no Moon.
• Evenings: Saturn, a few weeks past its Oct 4 opposition, stays in the evening sky until early March.
• From Oct 20: the Northern Taurids join the Southern Taurids (see November).

November 2026

• Nov 1: daylight saving time ends; times below are standard time until mid-March.
• Nov 4–6, Southern Taurids: a broad peak on Nov 5. The radiant rises in the early evening, and the thin waning crescent Moon rises after midnight. About five an hour, slow and now and then bright.
• Nov 7, before sunrise: a thin crescent Moon, Venus and the star Spica within 2.5 degrees of each other, low in the east-southeast.
• Nov 11–13, Northern Taurids: a broad peak on Nov 12, with the Moon out of the way.
• Mornings: Venus is the bright morning star and reaches its greatest brilliancy on Nov 29. Mercury is low in the east from about Nov 13 to Dec 4, best on Nov 20 and 21, about an hour before sunrise.
• Nov 16, before dawn: Mars passes 1.2 degrees from Jupiter. On Nov 26 it passes 1.7 degrees from Regulus, in Leo.
• Nov 17–18, Leonids: the peak (6:50 p.m. EST on Nov 17) comes before the radiant rises, so watch the mornings of Nov 17 and 18 from about 1 or 2 a.m., after the first-quarter Moon sets around midnight. EarthSky's estimate is 10 to 15 an hour under a dark sky; no storm is expected.
• Nov 24: full Moon (the Beaver Moon). Nov 25: Uranus at opposition, at magnitude 5.6, a binocular target from a dark site.

December 2026

• Dec 8: new Moon.
• Dec 13–14, Geminids, the strongest shower of the season: the peak falls on the morning of Dec 14 (8:45 a.m. EST), so the night of Sunday, Dec 13 is the one. The radiant is up by mid-evening, and the crescent Moon sets between about 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. EarthSky's dark-site estimate is up to about 120 an hour.
• Dec 22–23: the Ursids peak a day before full Moon (the Cold Moon, 8:28 p.m. EST on Dec 23), so this is a poor year for them.
• All month: Venus dominates the sky before dawn, and Saturn is in the evening sky.

January 2027

• Jan 3: Venus at its greatest western elongation, about 47 degrees from the Sun, brilliant before dawn.
• Jan 3–4, Quadrantids: the short peak falls at 10:25 p.m. EST on Jan 3, when the radiant is low or below the horizon across most of the country. Shoot from about midnight to dawn on Jan 4 as the radiant climbs. The thin crescent Moon barely matters; the cold does.
• Jan 7: new Moon. Jan 22: full Moon (the Wolf Moon), within a day of the Moon's closest approach to Earth, so some calendars call it a supermoon.
• Late January, evening twilight: Comet 2P/Encke brightens before its Feb 10 perihelion. The British Astronomical Association says it could reach 5th magnitude at the end of the month, other forecasts are fainter, and it stays low in twilight. A binocular hunt, with low expectations.

February 2027

• Feb 1–7: the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys (see below), in the darkest week of the month.
• Feb 6: annular solar eclipse, not visible from the US.
• Feb 10, evening: Jupiter at opposition, at magnitude -2.5 in Leo and up all night.
• Feb 19: Mars at opposition, at magnitude -1.2, also in Leo. Its disk is small this time, 13.8 arcseconds across.
• Feb 20: full Moon and a penumbral lunar eclipse, greatest at 6:13 p.m. EST. The eastern and central US see the later part as the Moon rises; the Mountain zone sees little or nothing and the Pacific coast misses it. Expect soft gray shading, not a red Moon.
• Late February: the Milky Way core starts to clear the southeastern horizon before dawn, best from the southern states, and the evening zodiacal light season begins.

March and April 2027

• March 8: new Moon. The mornings around it are good for the Milky Way core, which is better placed in March than in February.
• March 14: daylight saving time starts, so predawn sessions move an hour later on the clock.
• March 22 and April 20: full Moons.
• April 6: new Moon. The first half of April gives dark mornings for the core and dark evenings for the zodiacal light.
• April 22–23, Lyrids: the peak falls at 9:42 p.m. EDT on April 22, two days after full Moon. Expect only the occasional bright meteor.
• From April 19: the Eta Aquariids begin; they peak on May 6 under a new Moon.

Star parties, public nights and the weather

The Southern Cross Astronomical Society's Winter Star Party runs Feb 1 to 7, 2027, in West Summerland Key, Florida, with registration open until Feb 5. Parts of the event page still showed last year's gate dates when we checked, so confirm details with the organizers before you travel.

• Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson runs a Nightly Observing Program year-round. Book about a month ahead from January through May, and dress warmly: the summit is at 6,875 feet and the domes are unheated.
• Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles offers free telescope viewing on clear evenings when it's open (closed Mondays).
• McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, holds paid evening star parties, and Big Bend and Death Valley national parks have run ranger night programs in past seasons. Check their winter schedules.
• Weather: the desert Southwest is the sunniest region; the Pacific Northwest, the Upper Great Lakes and the Appalachians are among the cloudiest in winter. The Clear Sky Chart gives 96-hour site forecasts for cloud, transparency and seeing, without smoke.
• Aurora: the Sun passed its activity peak around October 2024 and is slowly declining, but strong storms still happen; the May 2024 storm brought aurora as far south as Hawaii. Watch NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
• Whatever you shoot this season, share your photos in the Astro photography hobby on Garbamons.