What’s Up: October 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA
NASA's What's Up for October 2026, dated Oct. 1 and presented by Raquel Villanueva of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, covers several skywatching highlights: Saturn at opposition, the Orionid meteor shower, and the Moon passing close to the Pleiades. On Oct. 4, Saturn reaches opposition, which happens when Earth passes between the Sun and Saturn. That places Saturn opposite the Sun in our sky, so it rises around sunset and stays visible for much of the night, giving skywatchers one of the year's best opportunities to see the ringed planet.
Saturn also offers a developing atmospheric puzzle. Astronomers have long known about a hexagon-shaped jet stream spanning nearly 20,000 miles across Saturn's north pole, but last month Hubble Space Telescope observations revealed a ten-sided atmospheric wave encircling the planet's south pole. This southern hemisphere feature appears to be strengthening, giving scientists a rare chance to watch a giant atmospheric pattern develop.
Other dates include Oct. 6, when a thin crescent Moon appears close to bright Jupiter before sunrise. The Orionid meteor shower peaks on the night of Oct. 21 into the morning of Oct. 22. The Orionids are created by tiny pieces of debris left behind by Halley's Comet; they appear to radiate from the direction of Orion, but meteors can streak across any part of the sky. A bright waxing gibbous Moon will wash out some fainter meteors this year, so the best chance may be a few hours before dawn, after moonset—find a dark location, give your eyes time to adjust, and look up.
On the night of Oct. 27 into Oct. 28, the Moon passes close to the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters. Many ancient cultures had stories associated with the Pleiades, partly because the cluster is visible from almost everywhere on the globe. To spot it, look east in the evening as the Moon and cluster climb higher into the night sky; the Pleiades appear as a slightly fuzzy grouping of 6 to 7 stars visible to the unaided eye, while binoculars or a telescope reveal more spectacular detail. The guide also includes October's Moon phases and points to NASA Science and skywatching resources, including the Night Sky Network, a nationwide coalition of amateur astronomy clubs that brings NASA mission science, technology, and inspiration to the public.