Planetary Society logo
  • “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

What’s up in the night sky: May 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: morning and evening planets, and a meteor shower. 

All month: Super bright Venus is low in the predawn east. Yellowish Saturn is above Venus. 

All month: Very bright Jupiter is in the western evening sky, getting lower as the month progresses. Reddish Mars is higher up in the evening sky above Jupiter.

May 3, 2025 night sky snapshot
May 3, 2025 night sky snapshot In the evening west, Jupiter is very bright. The (northern) winter constellations also seen here, including Orion, will drop below the horizon by month’s end. (Pasadena, California. Latitude: about 34 degrees north.)Image: Bruce Betts/The Planetary Society using Stellarium

May 5-6: The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks. The Eta Aquariids are a medium-strength shower with as many as 50 meteors per hour at a dark site in the southern hemisphere, and not quite as good from the northern hemisphere. The Moon will interfere with dimmer meteors until it sets a little after midnight, which, through dawn, is actually the best time to view the meteor shower in any case.

May 12: Full Moon

May 22: The Moon is near yellowish Saturn in the predawn east.

May 23: The crescent Moon is near super-bright Venus.

May 23, 2025 night sky snapshot
May 23, 2025 night sky snapshot In the predawn east, the crescent Moon is between super bright Venus and yellowish Saturn (Pasadena, California. Latitude: about 34 degrees north.)Image: Bruce Betts/The Planetary Society using Stellarium

May 27: New Moon

The Milky Way over Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park

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

Bruce Betts

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