Astronomy observing tips and guides
If youâre like us, youâve been following the close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the June dusk sky. Next week, the Moon enters the evening scene, and actually occults (passes in front of) the planet Venus in what promises to be one of the top skywatching events for 2026.
Unfortunately thereâs more bad news to report on the clear skies front. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from researchers at NASAâs Ames Research Center, reports that 73.3% of images the agencyâs new SPHEREx space telescope collected between May and September of last year were contaminated by at least one artificial satellite trail. And itâs only going to get worse from here.
We witnessed a surprise outburst late last week, from a lesser known periodic comet. Posts flashed across message boards late last week, alerting comet watchers to a dramatic change in brightness for periodic comet 220P McNaught. Though it wasnât on our list for bright comets to watch for in 2026, Comet 220P is now in range of binoculars or a small telescope, low to the east at dawn as it heads towards perihelion this coming weekend.
Itâs a familiar annual question, that weâre already hearing as we enter into June. âWhat are those two bright objects in the west?â Theyâre none other than the two brightest planets in the sky, Jupiter and Venus. Keep an eye on the dusk sky over the next week, and youâll see the two worlds getting ever closer to each other in the west. Though this happens every year or so, an evening conjunction assures that lots of the general public will see one of the best planetary pairings of 2026.
The prototype ngVLA antenna tested its systems by observing and tracking the Crab Nebula, also known as Taurus A (3C144), the remnant of an exploded star.
Thereâs nothing like a random celestial coincidence, turned good internet meme. In this case, the chance event is this weekendâs Full Moon, which also happens to be the second Full Moon of May, and is also the most distant and visually smallest Full Moon of the year.
An international team led by Associate Professor Kimihiko Nakajima of Kanazawa University has captured a rare look at the early universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the power of gravitational lensing, the team achieved a definitive characterization of LAP1-B, an ultra-faint galaxy from 13 billion years ago.
Our Sun is a loner. It lacks a stellar companion hurtling through interstellar space with it. But weâve known for a long time thatâs actually relatively rare - most stars have at least one gravitationally bound partner. Understanding how exactly those stars are related to each other is critical for observational campaigns - especially for those of exoplanets. So a new paper from researchers at the University of Madrid that categorizes almost every star within ten light years into companion categories is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject, and could be used to inform the next round of planet habitable planet hunting satellites.
The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESAâs Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASAâs Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the cometâs ultraviolet emissions.
Typically when we think of astronomy, we think of pictures of M87 captured on a backyard telescope or the soaring colorful peaks of the Eagle Nebula seen by Hubble. But perhaps the most influential type of astronomy of the last 100+ years doesnât directly result in the stunning pictures weâre so accustomed to today. It captures radio waves from some of the most interesting objects in the universe. And in her new book, The Echoing Universe: How Radio Astronomy Helps Us See the Invisible, Dr. Emma Chapman, a radio astronomer at the University of Nottingham, tracks how these longest wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum have influenced the practice of astronomy and our understanding of our place in the universe.
The Moon has a busy week ahead of it. If skies are clear, be sure to get outside on the evenings of May 18th/19th and surrounding nights to check out the evolving view to the west, in one of the best sky shows for 2026.
University of Cincinnati astrophysicist Paul Smith is part of an international team studying TOI-2031Ab, a gas giant orbiting a star 901 light years from Earth. Smith and his colleagues used the James Webb Space Telescope to study its atmosphere.
Brown dwarfs are notoriously difficult to find. These âfailed starsâ arenât big enough to sustain nuclear fusion, and therefore arenât as bright as more traditional main sequence stars. In fact, theyâre nearly invisible in optical light, and faintly visible in infrared. But thanks to dozens of citizen scientists combing through archival infrared datasets from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and a paper published in the Astronomical Journal detailing their work, we now have an additional set of over 3,000 candidate new brown dwarfs in our stellar neighborhood, more than doubling the total number found so far.
If youâve ever taken an introductory astronomy class, youâve probably seen the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. This graph maps out the life cycle of stars by plotting their temperature against their luminosity, and has been a âcheat sheetâ for stellar astrophysics for over a century. But the universe is full of more than just stars, and a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from Gabriel Steward and Matthew Hedman of the University of Idaho, attempts to do for the density and mass of all objects what the HR diagram did for the lifecycle of stars - provide a coherent, visual map to represent them.
A spiral galaxy seen close up and tilted at an angle, so that its disc fills the view from corner to corner. Its disc is yellow near to the centre and pale blue farther out, showing cooler and hotter stars, respectively. Thin brown clouds of dust, glowing pink spots of star formation, and sparkling blue patches filled with star clusters swirl through the galaxy. Behind it, small orange dots are very distant galaxies.
New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans the Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes, confirming scientistsâ theories of how black holes help shape the structure of the Universe.
The Subaru Telescope observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) on January 7, 2026 (UT), after it made its closest approach to the Sun. By observing colors in the coma around the comet, astronomers could estimate the ratio of carbon dioxide to water. This ratio is much lower than that inferred from earlier observations by space telescopes. These findings suggest that the chemistry of the coma is evolving over time and offers clues to the structure of comet 3I/ATLAS.
The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET), installed at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Paranal site in Chile, has made its first observations. The telescope will work with ESO's ESPRESSO instrument to study the sun in detail. Described as a solar telescope for planet hunters, PoET aims to understand how the variation in the light from stars like the sun can mask the presence of planets orbiting them, helping us in our search for worlds outside the solar system.
Theyâre a prolific, yet often elusive for northern hemisphere observers. If skies are clear, watch for a strong annual meteor shower thatâs attained an almost mythical status: the May Eta Aquariids. The Eta Aquariid meteor shower is active from April 19th until May 28th, with the key night being the evening of May 5th into the morning of May 6th.
Exoplanet science and the search for life beyond Earth continue to advance at break-neck speeds, with the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA rapidly approaching 6,300, with 223 of those exoplanets being designated as terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. With the promise of discovering an increasing number of Earth-sized exoplanets increasing every day, new telescopes from across the world have the opportunity to contribute to this incredible field.
Universe Today