What’s up in the night sky: May 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 and growing closer to each other in the evening sky, and it’s that time again: once in a Blue Moon.

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

All month: Very bright Jupiter is up above Venus in the west in the early evening, getting lower and closer to Venus as the days pass. 

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

All month: Reddish Mars is even lower than Saturn in the pre-dawn east.

End of the month: Mercury is visible soon after sunset if you have a clear view to the western horizon. 

May 1: Full Moon.

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 bright waning gibbous Moon will interfere with dimmer meteors this year, severely limiting the shower's visibility.

May 31: Blue Moon. A blue Moon is commonly defined as the second full Moon in the same month, which doesn’t happen often, hence the phrase ‘once in a blue Moon.’