Tonight's Sky

It depends on where you are and when it gets dark. Set your location above and skycrate lists the planets that are up after dusk, the Moon's phase and rise and set times, any visible ISS passes, active meteor showers and your chance of aurora. The sky visibility score at the top sums up whether the weather will let you see them. For the month as a whole, see what's in the night sky this month.

Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn are easy to spot with the naked eye when they're above the horizon. Mercury stays low near sunrise or sunset, Uranus needs a properly dark sky and Neptune needs binoculars or a telescope. The Planets card gives each one's best time and compass direction, counting only the hours when the sky is actually dark.

The ISS shows up as a bright, steady point moving quickly across the sky. You can only see it when it's still lit by the Sun while your sky is dark, which usually means within a couple of hours of dusk or dawn. The ISS card lists the next visible passes with their start time, direction and highest point, and you can add any of them to your calendar.

That depends on solar activity, measured by the Kp index, and on how close you are to the auroral oval around the magnetic pole. The Aurora card uses NOAA's short-range forecast for your exact location. Further from the poles you'll usually need a strong geomagnetic storm, a dark sky and a clear view towards the pole: north in the Northern Hemisphere, south in the Southern.

The Moon card shows tonight's phase, how much of the Moon is lit, and when it rises and sets. A bright Moon washes out faint stars, galaxies and meteors, so the darkest nights — the best for stargazing and astrophotography — fall around new moon.

The Meteor Showers card counts down to the next peaks, such as the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December, with the rate you can expect. You'll usually see most after midnight, away from city lights, with the Moon down. The full meteor shower calendar lists every peak with the moonlight to expect, and the eclipse calendar runs to 2030.

The sky visibility score, from 0 to 100, starts with the forecast cloud cover over tonight's dark hours (thin high cloud counts for less, since stars still show through it), then takes off points for a bright Moon in the sky and for very high humidity. 60 or more is good and 80 or more is excellent. To plan ahead, the 7-night stargazing forecast scores every night of the coming week.

Planet, Moon and Sun positions are calculated with the astronomy-engine library and checked against independent astronomy software. ISS passes come from the station's latest published orbit, weather from Open-Meteo and aurora forecasts from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The About page explains each source and how the scores are worked out.