What’s up in the night sky: April 2026

Welcome to our night sky monthly feature, where we focus on easy and fun things to see in the night sky, mostly with just your eyes. This month: The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, are shining bright in the evening sky, and the Lyrid meteor shower does its medium-strength thing.

All month: Super bright Venus dominates the early evening western sky.

All month: Very bright Jupiter is up high in the west in the early evening. 

Late month: Yellowish Saturn is very low to the pre-dawn eastern horizon. 

All month: Reddish Mars is low in the pre-dawn east.

Early month: Mercury is visible above the eastern horizon before dawn.

Early to mid-month: If it survives a close flyby of the Sun on April 4, the comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) could be bright enough to see with just your eyes. It was discovered by Planetary Society Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grant winner Alain Maury and his colleagues Georges Attard, Daniel Parrott, and Florian Signoret, whose initials give the name of their survey and the comet: MAPS. In recent years, they have also been the leading non-professional discoverers of near-Earth asteroids, with hundreds of discoveries.

April 2: Full Moon.

April 18: In the days around April 18, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and Neptune are all near each other in the pre-dawn east. The challenge in seeing them is that they all rise very low to the eastern horizon just before dawn. Neptune requires a telescope under the best viewing conditions, so it is not really an option, but with a very clear eastern horizon, you might be able to pick out the others around an hour or less before sunrise.

April 18: The crescent Moon is near Venus in the evening west.

Apr 21-22: The medium-strength Lyrid meteor shower peaks. During the peak, the crescent Moon sets early, so it will not interfere with viewing.

April 22: The Moon is near very bright Jupiter.

April 23: In the early evening west, super bright Venus will be near super dim, bluish Uranus, as well as the faint stars of the Pleiades star cluster. Time to get out your binoculars and have some fun.