The Night Sky This Month – April 2026
(Looking for last month’s ‘Night Sky’? Find it at this link…)
Venus and the crescent Moon put on a fine show in the western sky after dawn this month, while Jupiter lingers in Gemini and remains splendid in a telescope. A gaggle of planets lie low over the eastern horizon before sunrise. And a meteor shower – the Lyrids – makes its annual appear with the Moon mostly out of the way. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month.
2 April 2026. Full Moon, 02:12 UT. This is the full ‘Pink Moon’, so named not because the Moon turns pink but because this is the season of flower blossoms.
2 April. Watch the ‘Pink Moon’ rise near first-magnitude Spica in the southeastern sky after sunset.
6 April. The waning gibbous Moon rises in the late evening with Antares in the southeast.
10 April. Last Quarter Moon, 04:52 UT.
15 April. If you’re up early and you have an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon, grab your binoculars and look for Mercury, Mars, and a fading crescent Moon just over the horizon. Saturn and Neptune also lie in the area but are likely not visible in the brightening morning sky. The planets move about over the next week or so. This vista is a challenge for northern observers, but southern-hemisphere observers see the Moon and planets higher above the horizon during this apparition.
17 April. New Moon, 11:52 UT.
18 April. Look for a wafer-thin Moon about 5o from bright Venus low in the west-northwestern sky after sunset. You may need binoculars to pull the Moon out of the twilight.
19 April. Look for the Moon again this evening, a little thicker now, along with Venus and the Pleiades about halfway between the two.
22 April. As the Moon continues along the ecliptic, tonight is lies in Gemini near Jupiter and the star Pollux. Tonight, magnitude -2.1 Jupiter lies just over a degree northwest of the star Wasat (Delta Gem). Over the next week, the planet moves closer to Wasat and passes about 35’ north of the star on April 30. The planet, its moons, and the star can fit into the same field of view in a telescope.
22-23 April. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks in the early-morning hours. This is the first significant meteor shower since the Quadrantids in early January. The Lyrids display some 15-20 meteors per hour in good conditions and trace their apparent paths back to a point between the constellations Hercules and Lyra, both of which rise in the east around midnight. The first-quarter Moon mostly stays out of the way this year. The Lyrids arise as the Earth passes through the path of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). While the shower peaks this night and morning (April 22-23), it runs from April 14-30, approximately. You can see the Lyrids anywhere in the sky – just look up and be patient.
23 April. Venus and the Pleiades have moved a little closer now, about 3.5o apart, in the west-northwestern sky. Again, binoculars enhance the view.
24 April. First Quarter Moon, 02:32 UT
24 April. With a telescope, look for Uranus about 0.8o south of Venus in the western sky after sunset. Still at magnitude -3.9, Venus presents a disc nearly 90% illuminated and 11” across.
25 April. The gibbous Moon passes near the star Regulus tonight and occults the star for observers in some of the Americas, especially the U.S., southwestern Canada, Central America, and northern South America. Timing for various locations at this link. For westerly observers in the Americas, the occultation occurs during the day, but you can still see the event with the help of a telescope.