What’s up in the night sky: January 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: In the evening sky, Jupiter is bright and lovely, there are lots of bright stars, and you may be able to see the light of a galaxy far, far away that started its journey to your eyes a long time ago.

All month: Very bright Jupiter rises in the east around sunset and is up all night. It dominates the eastern sky in the evening, being more than twice as bright as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which is not too far in the sky from Jupiter.

All month: Yellowish Saturn is up in the west in the early evening.

Jan. 3: Full Moon.

Jan. 3: Peak of the Quadrantid meteor shower. Unfortunately, this year, a full Moon will make it hard to see many of the meteors. Still, this shower tends to be very good (normally tens of meteors per hour from a dark site) near the peak. It is very concentrated near the peak, so it weakens significantly as you get further from that date. Also, it is much weaker in the southern hemisphere. 

Jan. 3: The Moon is fairly close to Jupiter in the sky.

Jan. 3: Earth’s perihelion – Earth is at its closest to the Sun in its orbit.

Jan. 10: Jupiter is at opposition: the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. It will rise around sunset and set around sunrise.

Jan. 18: New Moon.