Night Sky Guide: Northern Lights, Meteor Showers, Moon Phases & Eclipses

The night sky over the United States puts on a better show than most people realize. In the last few years, geomagnetic storms have pushed the northern lights far south of their usual home in Alaska and Canada, meteor showers have kept their reliable annual appointments, a total solar eclipse crossed the Arctic and Spain in August 2026 with a partial phase visible from Alaska to the Mid-Atlantic, and every month brings a named full moon. This guide brings it all together: how to read an aurora forecast and decide whether tonight is worth a drive, where and when to look, how to photograph what you see with a phone or a camera, the meteor shower and full moon calendars for 2026 and 2027, the eclipses ahead, and the golden and blue hours that frame every clear evening. Each section links to an in-depth article, and our live northern lights tonight page turns NOAA's forecast into a city-by-city outlook.

What's in the sky this season (October 2026 – January 2027)

Dates come from the American Meteor Society (meteor showers), the US Naval Observatory (moon phases and the solstice, converted to Eastern Time) and NASA JPL Horizons (moon distances). Aurora chances depend on solar activity and cannot be scheduled; the northern states see them on storm nights throughout the season.

Date	Event	What to expect
Oct 21–22	Orionid meteor shower peak	10–20 meteors per hour in a normal year; a 76% Moon, so watch before dawn
Oct 26, 12:12 a.m. EDT	Hunter's Moon	Looks full on the night of Oct 25
Nov 4–5	Southern Taurids peak	Few meteors but known for fireballs; 22% Moon
Nov 9, 2:02 a.m. EST	New moon	Darkest nights of the month: best for aurora and stars
Nov 11–12	Northern Taurids peak	Slow, sometimes bright meteors; 5% Moon
Nov 16–17	Leonid meteor shower peak	ZHR about 15; 41% Moon sets around midnight
Nov 24, 9:53 a.m. EST	Beaver Moon	A near-supermoon
Dec 8, 7:52 p.m. EST	New moon	Dark skies ahead of the Geminids
Dec 13–14	Geminid meteor shower peak	The year's strongest shower, ZHR 150; only a 17% Moon
Dec 21, 3:50 p.m. EST	Winter solstice	Longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere
Dec 21–22	Ursid meteor shower peak	5–10 per hour; a 91% Moon
Dec 23, 8:28 p.m. EST	Cold Moon supermoon	Closest full moon of 2026, about 221,667 miles away
Jan 3–4, 2027	Quadrantid meteor shower peak	Short, sharp peak near 10:30 p.m. EST Jan 3; 16% Moon
Jan 22, 2027, 7:17 a.m. EST	Wolf Moon supermoon	Second supermoon of the winter

1. The Kp index explained: how to read an aurora forecast

Every aurora app and news alert draws on the same handful of products from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The Kp index measures geomagnetic activity from 0 to 9; SWPC's rule of thumb is that the edge of the auroral oval moves about 2 degrees of geomagnetic latitude toward the equator for every step of Kp. When Kp reaches 5, SWPC calls it a geomagnetic storm and rates it on the G-scale: G1 storms commonly bring the aurora to northern Michigan and Maine, G2 storms have produced aurora as far south as New York and Idaho, G3 Illinois and Oregon, G4 Alabama and northern California, and the rare G5 storms Florida and southern Texas. The green-and-red oval that apps call a "northern lights tonight map" is SWPC's OVATION model, which uses solar wind measured about a million miles upstream to forecast the aurora 30 to 90 minutes ahead – the most reliable aurora forecast there is, but a short one.

The key is to use each product for what it can do: the 3-day forecast to know whether to be ready, the OVATION map and a look at the clouds to decide whether to go out. Read the full explanation, with a table of the Kp each region needs, in Kp index explained: how to read a northern lights forecast. For tonight's actual outlook, go straight to our live northern lights forecast for your city, which combines NOAA's Kp forecast, the OVATION model and hourly cloud cover for more than 50 cities in the US, Canada and beyond, updated every 30 minutes.

2. Where and when to see the northern lights in the US

Interior Alaska is the surest bet. The Fairbanks visitor bureau puts the city under the auroral oval, defines its aurora season as August 21 to April 21, and says the aurora is visible on average four out of five nights when the sky is clear and dark. In the lower 48, the northern tier from Washington and Montana through North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Maine sees the aurora during minor to moderate storms. Dark skies make the difference: Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota is a designated Dark Sky Park, and Pennsylvania's Cherry Springs State Park, the state's first Dark Sky Park, catches strong storms.

Timing matters as much as place. SWPC says the best aurora usually comes within an hour or two of local midnight, roughly 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and that larger storms are more common near the spring and fall equinoxes. As for the Sun itself, NASA and NOAA announced in October 2024 that solar cycle 25 had reached its maximum period; SWPC's smoothed sunspot number peaked at 160.9 in October 2024 in the data so far and has been declining, but NASA notes that significant storms often occur in the declining phase too. Full details, state by state, are in Where to see the northern lights in the US: best states, places and times.

3. How to photograph the northern lights

A phone on a tripod can now capture aurora that the eye barely sees, because camera sensors gather light over several seconds and record color in conditions where human vision is mostly black and white. On an iPhone, Night mode on a tripod with the longest exposure option is the simplest route; on Google Pixel phones, Night Sight switches automatically to Astrophotography mode when the phone is steady. With a dedicated camera, professional night-sky photographer Dave Morrow recommends f/2.8 to f/4, roughly 3–7 seconds for fast-moving aurora and 10–25 seconds for faint displays, ISO 800–4000 and RAW files.

The most common mistakes are camera shake, autofocus hunting in the dark and exposures so long that the aurora's rays blur into a green smear. The step-by-step guide, with settings tables for phones and cameras and a troubleshooting table, is How to photograph the northern lights with a phone or camera.

4. Meteor showers 2026–2027

Meteor showers are the most reliable night-sky events: they return on almost the same dates every year as Earth passes through streams of comet and asteroid debris. The American Meteor Society's calendar lists the Orionids (Oct 21–22, 2026), the Taurids (early and mid-November), the Leonids (Nov 16–17) and the Geminids (Dec 13–14), usually the strongest shower of the year, with a zenithal hourly rate of 150 in the International Meteor Organization's calendar and only a 17% crescent Moon in 2026. In 2027 the Quadrantids open the year on January 3–4, followed by the Lyrids in April, the Eta Aquariids in May and the Perseids on August 12–13.

No equipment is needed. The AMS recommends watching between midnight and dawn for most showers, looking at a dark part of the sky about halfway up, and giving your eyes 20–30 minutes to adjust without phone screens. The full calendar with moonlight conditions and a month-by-month list is in Meteor showers 2026–2027: calendar, peak dates and when to watch.

5. Moon phases and the full moon calendar

The Moon cycles through eight phases about every 29.5 days, NASA explains, because we see different portions of its sunlit half as it orbits Earth. Using US Naval Observatory data, the next full moon is the Hunter's Moon on October 26, 2026, at 12:12 a.m. EDT, followed by the Beaver Moon on November 24 and the Cold Moon on December 23. The year 2026 has 13 full moons, including a Blue Moon on May 31. Checking each full moon's distance in NASA JPL's Horizons system shows that the December 23, 2026, and January 22, 2027, full moons fall within 360,000 km of Earth, the supermoon threshold used by timeanddate.com.

The complete 2026 and 2027 tables with times in Eastern Time, the traditional names, the rule behind the Harvest Moon, and all new moons for dark-sky planning are in Full moon calendar 2026 and 2027: dates, times, names and moon phases.

6. Eclipses: August 2026 and what comes next

On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse swept across Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic and Spain. NASA's tables show it as a partial eclipse across much of the northern US: 37% of the Sun covered at Fairbanks, 24% at Bangor, Maine, 16% at Boston and smaller amounts farther south and west. The next total solar eclipse, on August 2, 2027, crosses southern Spain, North Africa and the Middle East; NASA says only northern Maine in the US will see a partial phase. Lunar eclipses are easier to catch: after the total lunar eclipse of March 3, 2026, and the deep partial eclipse of August 27–28, 2026, the coming ones visible from the US include penumbral eclipses in February and August 2027 and a total lunar eclipse on December 31, 2028.

The long wait is for totality at home. The next total solar eclipse visible from the US is in Alaska on March 30, 2033; in the lower 48 it is August 23, 2044 (Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota), followed by a coast-to-coast eclipse on August 12, 2045. NASA's safety rule never changes: look at a partial eclipse only through eclipse glasses or viewers that meet the ISO 12312-2 standard. More in Eclipses 2026–2045: what the US can see and how to watch safely.

7. Golden hour and blue hour

The golden hour is the period shortly after sunrise and before sunset when the Sun is low and its light warm and soft; the blue hour is the deep-blue twilight just before sunrise and after sunset. Common photography definitions put the golden hour with the Sun between about 6 degrees above and 4 degrees below the horizon, and the blue hour between 4 and 6 degrees below. The National Weather Service defines civil twilight as ending when the Sun's center is 6 degrees below the horizon. Using NOAA's solar equations, we calculated that the evening golden hour lasts about 50 minutes in Miami at the winter solstice, about an hour in New York and about 75 minutes in Seattle, and that in Fairbanks the Sun never climbs more than a couple of degrees above the horizon on the December solstice.

Tables for four US cities at each solstice and equinox, and how to calculate golden hour for your own location, are in Golden hour and blue hour: what they are, how to calculate them and times by season.

The night-sky year at a glance

Some events are fixed in the calendar; others, like the aurora, depend on the Sun. This summary shows when each kind of event is best from the United States.

Month	Meteor showers	Aurora (northern states)	Nights
January	Quadrantids	Good: long nights, cold	Long
February	None major	Good	Long
March	None major	Very good: equinox storms	Shortening
April	Lyrids	Good	Shortening
May	Eta Aquariids (pre-dawn)	Possible, short nights	Short
June	None major	Possible, very short nights	Shortest
July	Delta Aquariids, Capricornids	Possible	Short
August	Perseids	Alaska season opens	Lengthening
September	Minor showers	Very good: equinox storms	Lengthening
October	Draconids, Orionids	Very good	Long
November	Taurids, Leonids	Good	Long
December	Geminids, Ursids	Good: longest nights	Longest

How to plan a night under the stars

• Check the Moon first. The week around the new moon is darkest. A bright Moon dims faint aurora and hides all but the brightest meteors.
• Check the clouds second. A clear gap of two hours matters more than any forecast number. Our northern lights tonight page shows the cloud forecast for the dark hours in each city.
• Get away from lights. Even a short drive out of town makes a large difference; look for a spot with an open horizon in the direction you need – north for the aurora.
• Let your eyes adapt. Twenty to thirty minutes without bright screens, and a red light if you need one.
• Dress for standing still. Winter nights in the northern states can be dangerously cold; bring layers, a chair and a charged phone, and check our winter weather guide for wind chill and frostbite risks.
• Bring a tripod. Whether for aurora, meteors or the Moon, a steady phone or camera is the difference between a blur and a keeper.

This guide is reviewed regularly. Aurora odds change with solar activity, and the eclipse, moon and meteor tables are updated as new calendars are published by the Naval Observatory, NASA, the American Meteor Society and the International Meteor Organization.

Cover photo: United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang, Wikimedia Commons (public domain).