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Sunday, 28 December 2025 | Default Location
Showing the sky from Greenwich, London. Log in to use your own location.
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Tonight at a Glance

Waxing Gibbous 61%
Dark window: 17:19 – 06:40 (13 h 21 m)

Bright moon tonight — best deep-sky viewing after moonset (01:54)

Planet Highlights

Jupiter mag -2.7 · 35° alt · Gemini Details
GRS transit tonight:
Io Shadow transit begins
Io Transit begins
Io Shadow transit ends
Io Transit ends
+1 more — Details
Saturn mag 1.0 · 18° alt · Aquarius Details
Rings: Barely open (1.0° north face)

Comets

PANSTARRS mag 6.6 · 27° alt · Pegasus Details
bright 2.18 AU Perihelion: Apr 19 (in 19d)

For Beginners (naked eye)

Hyades
Open Cluster
mag 0.5

At 21:00 look high in the southeast

Taurus
M42
Great Orion Nebula Nebula
mag 4.0

At 21:00 look halfway up in the southeast

Orion
M31
Andromeda Galaxy Galaxy
mag 3.4

At 21:00 look high in the west

Andromeda

Binocular Targets

Mira
68 Cet Variable Star
mag 3.0

At 21:00 look halfway up in the south

Cet
M34
Spiral Cluster Open Cluster
mag 5.5

At 21:00 look near the zenith

Perseus
M81
Bode's Galaxy Galaxy
mag 6.9

At 21:00 look halfway up in the northeast

Ursa Major

Small Scopes (3–6 inch)

Castor
HIP 36850; Alpha Gem; 66 Gem Double Star
mag 2.0

At 21:00 look halfway up in the east

Gem
C10
NGC 663 Open Cluster
mag 7.1

At 21:00 look near the zenith

Cassiopeia
NGC 246
Planetary Nebula
mag 8.0

At 21:00 look low in the southwest

Cet
M101
Pinwheel Galaxy Galaxy
mag 7.9

At 21:00 look low in the north

Ursa Major
32 Eri
Double Star
mag 4.8

At 21:00 look halfway up in the south

Eri

Big Scopes (8–12 inch)

NGC 1496
Open Cluster
mag 10.0

At 21:00 look near the zenith

Per
NGC 1514
Planetary Nebula
mag 10.0

At 21:00 look high in the southeast

Tau
C5
IC 342 Galaxy
mag 9.2

At 21:00 look near the zenith

Camelopardalis
M77
Cetus A or Squid Galaxy Galaxy
mag 8.9

At 21:00 look halfway up in the south

Cetus
M76
Little Dumbbell Nebula Planetary Nebula
mag 10.1

At 21:00 look near the zenith

Perseus

The Week Ahead

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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away. Although it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, NGC 1898 is so far away that it takes light about 160,000 years to get here. This huge ball of stars, NGC 1898, is called a globular cluster and resides in the central bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) -- a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. The featured multi-colored image includes light from the infrared to the ultraviolet and was taken to help determine if the stars of NGC 1898 all formed at the same time or at different times. There are increasing indications that most globular clusters formed stars in stages, and that, in particular, stars from NGC 1898 formed shortly after ancient encounters with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and our Milky Way Galaxy. Space Telescopes Live: Where are Hubble and Webb looking right now?

APOD is a service of NASA and Michigan Tech. U.

View on NASA APOD

Space News

Sendoff for Artemis II Crew

NASA's Artemis II crew (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen) completes final preparations for the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years.

NASA — 30 Mar 2026

NASA Selects Intuitive Machines to Deliver Artemis Science, Tech to Moon

NASA awards Intuitive Machines $180.4 million to deliver science payloads to the lunar surface as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative supporting the Artemis program.

NASA — 27 Mar 2026

NASA Releases Artemis II Moon Mission Launch Countdown

NASA releases the launch countdown timeline for Artemis II, targeting no earlier than April 1, 2026, for the crewed mission around the Moon.

NASA — 26 Mar 2026

NASA Names Scientists to Support Lunar South Pole Science

NASA selects 10 participating scientists to support the Artemis lunar science plan, including instrument deployment and sample collection on the Moon's south pole.

NASA — 27 Mar 2026

Plan your session before dark

Use Tonight to find targets, then add them to a Plan so you have a checklist ready when you're outside.

Open Tonight

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