What’s up in the night sky: April 2025
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: a meteor shower, morning and evening planets, and Mars and the Gemini twins do a line dance.
All month: Super bright Venus is very low on the pre-dawn eastern horizon at the beginning of the month and getting higher as the month goes on. Yellowish Saturn follows a similar plan below Venus. Mercury is below both in the mid-month but remains very close to the horizon.
All month: Very bright Jupiter is high in the western evening sky. Reddish Mars also starts the evenings higher up as it follows Jupiter across the sky each evening.
April 2: Very bright Jupiter is in the evening west, approximately between the crescent Moon and Taurus’ brightest star, Aldebaran.

April 5: High in the evening sky, the crescent Moon is not too far from Mars.
April 10: Reddish Mars appears in a line with nearby Pollux and Castor, the twin stars of Gemini. They are in an approximate line for a few nights before and after.

April 13: Full Moon.
April 21: This night will see the peak of the Lyrids, a medium-strength meteor shower. It is usually best seen from the northern hemisphere on the night of the peak or one night before or after. A waning crescent Moon will slightly interfere with seeing these meteors.
April 25: In the pre-dawn east, the crescent Moon is below super bright Venus and yellowish Saturn and above bright Mercury. The latter is very close to the horizon, so it may be difficult to see.

April 27: New Moon.
Learn more about the Night Sky
Our journey to know the Cosmos and our place within it starts right outside our windows, in the night sky. Get weekly reports on what's visible and learn how to become a better backyard observer.

Bruce Betts
Chief Scientist / LightSail Program Manager for The Planetary Society
Read more articles by Bruce Betts