The 2026 Sky Calendar — Every Event Worth Setting an Alarm For

How to use the calendar

Set a location at the top: type a city, or tap “Or use my exact location” underneath to share your browser’s location. Nothing is stored — the math happens in your tab.

Each event row shows the date, the kind of event (meteor shower, eclipse, supermoon, conjunction, or solstice/equinox), a brief description, and — once you’ve set a location — whether the relevant body is above your horizon at peak.

The filter chips at the top narrow the list to one event kind at a time. Useful if you’re planning around just meteor showers, just the eclipses, or just the supermoon series.

What “visible” actually means

For meteor showers, the calendar checks whether the shower’s radiant — the point in the sky the meteors appear to come from — is above your horizon at peak. If the radiant is below your horizon, the meteors are blocked by the Earth itself.

For lunar eclipses, the check is whether the moon is above your horizon during the eclipse. The moon has to be up to be in shadow.

For solar eclipses, the check is whether the sun is above your horizon during the eclipse window. Note that this is necessary but not sufficient for seeing totality — total and annular eclipses also require being inside the narrow path of totality/annularity. The calendar notes the path for each.

For supermoons and conjunctions, the check is whether the relevant body (moon for supermoons, Venus/Mars/Jupiter etc. for conjunctions) is above your horizon at peak.

For equinoxes and solstices, there’s no visibility chip — these are timing events, not sky events. They happen at a single instant globally.

The headlines for 2026

August 12: Total solar eclipse

The biggest sky event of the year. Path of totality crosses Iceland, then northern Spain (Asturias, León, Burgos, La Rioja, Aragón, Valencia), then a thin slice of Portugal. Totality lasts roughly two minutes at the centerline.

For everyone outside the path, partial phases are visible across most of Europe and northern Africa. The solar eclipse explainer covers how the geometry works.

March 3: Total lunar eclipse

Blood moon — Earth’s shadow turns the moon a deep coppery red for roughly an hour. Visible from across the Pacific, Asia, Australia, and western North America. No equipment, no eye protection, no travel.

Background on what makes a lunar eclipse red is in the lunar eclipse explainer.

Mid-December: Geminids

The best meteor shower of the year, by a wide margin. 120+ per hour at peak, slow bright meteors with unusual colour (yellows, greens, the occasional blue). The radiant is up by mid-evening, so you don’t need to wait until the early hours.

The catch is the cold. Northern Hemisphere December at 2 AM with your back on the ground is not comfortable. Layers, a sleeping bag, hot drinks. The detailed shower guide has more.

January and October–December: Four supermoons

An unusual year. Most years have one or two supermoons; 2026 has four — the Wolf Moon kicking off the year on January 3, then a tight year-end cluster: Hunter’s (October 26), Beaver (November 24), and Cold (December 24).

The Cold Moon on Christmas Eve is the closest of the four, and the closest full moon of the entire year. If you photograph one moon this year, that’s the one. The supermoon names post has the cultural background on each name.

Events that don’t need a special date

Most of the “what’s in the sky tonight” questions don’t need an event. The planets are up most nights; the major constellations are seasonal but up for months at a time; the Milky Way is visible from any reasonably dark spot, year-round.

If you’re asking “is tonight worth going outside,” the Sky Tonight tool is the live answer. The 2026 calendar is for the bigger events — the ones that need a date on the wall.

Other ways to plan a stargazing year

A few things that consistently make the difference between a clear-night memory and a frustrated drive home:

• Dark sky. Most events look ten times better away from city light. The dark-sky parks guide lists the closest spots in most regions.
• Moon phase. A bright full moon during a meteor shower washes the meteors out. Cross-check the lunar calendar before a shower date.
• Weather. Check forecasts the day before. If your local sky is clouded out, an hour’s drive sometimes solves it.
• Comfort. Reclining chair, sleeping bag if cold, no phone glances (they reset your night vision).
• Patience. Eyes take 15–20 minutes to dark-adapt. Plan to stay at least an hour after that.

The beginners’ guide walks through every one of these in detail.

How the calendar was built

Event dates and times come from published astronomy data — NASA eclipse pages, standard meteor-shower peak windows, and the IAU’s ephemerides for planetary alignments.

The per-location visibility math is done in your browser using astronomy-engine, the same open-source library that powers the rest of SkyWhen. For each event, the engine computes where the relevant sky body (or radiant) is at the moment of peak, in your local horizontal coordinates. Above horizon = the body is in your sky at peak; below horizon = the Earth itself is between you and the event.

The math is reliable to better than a sixtieth of a degree for any event in the foreseeable future. The accuracy post has the full breakdown if you want the trust-but-verify version.

The calendar is free, forever. If one of these nights is one you want to keep — the eclipse you flew to Spain to see, the meteor shower you finally got the kids out for, the supermoon over your favorite stretch of coast — the “Save this sky” link on every event opens the customizer pre-filled with that date and your location.