This Week's Sky at a Glance, April 3 – 12

By: Alan MacRobert April 3, 2026 0

Will the new sungrazing Comet MAPS (C/2026 A1) survive its hairpin loop around the Sun at perihelion April 4th? Will it break up and evaporate away, break up and brighten, or stay intact for its outward swing?

Starting about April 6th, use binoculars or a wide-field telescope to scan for it just above the west horizon in the bright sunset afterglow. Every day it will get higher while losing brightness. . . presumably. Venus is in the same general vicinity, but it too is moving from day to day. See Bob King's Latest News on the Kreutz Sungrazing Comet C/2026 A1 MAPS.

FRIDAY, APRIL 3

■ The Pleiades are still high in the west at nightfall, as shown below. Their April descent toward Venus is now under way.

Venus low in the west, the Pleiades high above: nightfall, April 3, 2026 — Venus gradually continues to show itself more easily and plainly low in evening twilight.

Far above Venus, once the sky becomes dark enough, the Pleiades softy glitter. Tonight the Pleiades stand 25° above Venus. Watch these two one-of-a-kind sky sights close in on each other by almost 1° per day. They will pass each other, 3¾° apart, on April 23rd and 24th.

■ Callisto, Jupiter's slowest-moving large satellite, casts its tiny black shadow onto Jupiter's face tonight from 9:14 p.m. EDT to 1:32 a.m. EDT. Callisto itself is two or three Jupiter-diameters off to Jupiter's west.

And, expect Jupiter's Great Red Spot to transit the planet's central meridian around 9:48 p.m. EDT.

SATURDAY, APRIL 4

■ Shortly after the end of twilight around this time of year, Arcturus, the bright Spring Star climbing in the east, stands just as high as Sirius, the even brighter Winter Star descending in the southwest (for skywatchers not too far from 40° north latitude).

These are the two brightest stars in the sky at that time. But Capella is a very close runner-up to Arcturus! Spot Capella high in the west-northwest.

SUNDAY, APRIL 5

■ Capella, high in the west-northwest during and after dusk, has a pale yellow-white color matching the Sun's — meaning they're both about the same temperature. But otherwise Capella is very different. It consists of two yellow-giant stars orbiting each other every 104 days.

Moreover, for telescope users, it's accompanied by a distant, tight pair of faint red dwarfs: Capella H and L, magnitudes 10 and 13. Article and finder charts.

■ If you're awake before dawn Monday morning, spot the waning gibbous Moon shining in the west-southwest with orange Antares 4° or 5° to its left.

MONDAY, APRIL 6

■ Vega, the bright "Summer Star," rises in the northeast late these evenings. How early or late depends on your latitude and also on your longitude within your time zone.

Exactly where should you watch for Vega to come up? Spot the Big Dipper very high in the northeast. Look at Mizar at the bend of its handle. If you can see Mizar's tiny, close companion Alcor (binoculars show it easily), follow a straight line from Mizar through Alcor all the way down to the horizon. That's where Vega is about to make its appearance.

TUESDAY, APRIL 7

■ After dark, the Sickle of Leo stands vertical high in the south. Its bottom star is Regulus, Leo's brightest. Leo himself is walking horizontally westward. The Sickle forms his front leg, chest, mane, and part of his head. Off to the left, a long right triangle forms his hind end and long tail.

■ Going deeper in Leo. On these moonless evenings, check in on what Matt Wedel calls "The Lion's Pride": the three galaxies M66, M65, and NGC 3628 below Leo's hindquarters: below the short side of that long right triangle. The galaxies are often listed as magnitudes 8.9, 9.3, and 9.5, respectively. You can use the finder chart with Matt's "Binocular Highlight" column in the April Sky & Telescope, page 43. But really, most of us need a telescope for any of these. Matt lives under an enviably dark sky, but even he says he needs at least 10x50 binocs to spot all three consistently, "and I prefer the view in my 15x70s."

M65 and M66 are only a third of a degree apart, so they'll fit in the same a low-power eyepiece view. Telescopically, M65 is the more compact of the two and has a tiny starlike core. M66, though nominally brighter, is more diffuse and lacks a stellar nucleus, making it a little harder to detect though light pollution.

NGC 3628, more difficult, is an edge-on spiral oriented WNW to ESE: at right angles to its direction from the other two galaxies. The three are about 31 to 35 million light-years away.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8

■ A small telescope will show Jupiter's moon Io reappearing from eclipse out of Jupiter's shadow around 10:21 p.m. EDT. Watch for Io to swell into view out of the darkness over the course of two or three minutes, about one Jupiter radius from Jupiter's eastern edge.

THURSDAY, APRIL 9

■ Last-quarter Moon (exactly last-quarter at 12:52 a.m. tonight Eastern Daylight Time).

This is the latest rising last-quarter Moon of the year; it comes up around 3 a.m. local daylight-saving time. Once it's in good view, look for the Teapot of Sagittarius to its right or upper right, and Scorpius much farther beyond to the upper right. By the beginning of dawn they're all higher and lined up more level.

FRIDAY, APRIL 10

■ At this time of year, the two Dog Stars stand vertically aligned in late twilight. Look southwest. Brilliant Sirius in Canis Major is below, and Procyon in Canis Minor is high above.

Look to the right of their midpoint for orange Betelgeuse, the third star of the equilateral Winter Triangle. It marks Orion's shoulder.

Mercury and Saturn VERY low in bright dawn, April 11, 2026. You'll probably need binoculars or a wide-field telescope even for brighter Mercury. — Mercury and Mars are *very* low in bright dawn now. You'll probably need binoculars or a wide-field telescope even to pick up brighter Mercury.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11

■ Find Procyon again high above brilliant Sirius in the southwest. Look upper left of Procyon by 15° (about a fist and a half at arm's length) for the dim head of Hydra, the enormous Sea Serpent. His head is a group of 3rd- and 4th- magnitude stars about the size of your thumb at arm's length.

About a fist and a half lower left of Hydra's head shines Alphard, his 2nd-magnitude orange heart. The rest of Hydra zigzags (faintly) from Alphard all the way down to the southeast horizon.

Hydra's heads makes a roughly equilateral triangle with Regulus and Alphard.

SUNDAY, APRIL 12

■ Arcturus shines brightly in the east these evenings. The Big Dipper, high in the northeast, points its curving handle lower-right down toward it.

Arcturus forms the pointy end of a long, narrow kite asterism formed by the brightest stars of Boötes, the Cowherd. The kite is currently lying on its side to Arcturus's left. The head of the kite, at the far left, is bent slightly upward as shown below. The kite is 23° long: about two fists at arm's length:

In early April after nightfall, the Big Dipper stands high in the northeast and Arcturus is down to its lower left by about a Dipper length. Arcturus is the bottom point of the Bootes Kite, which is lying on its side as it rises.. — After nightfall in early April, the Big Dipper stands high in the northeast. Arcturus sparkles down to its lower left by a little more than a Dipper length. Arcturus forms the bottom point of the Boőtes Kite, which always lies on its side as it rises.

Or maybe it's a pointy-tied shoe. The Boot of Boőtes?

This Week's Planet Roundup

Mercury, Mars, Saturn and Neptune are deep in the glare of sunrise.

Mercury, the brightest and least low, is the only one of them you might have a chance at. All week it stays at magnitude 0 and at about the same altitude. Try for it with binoculars just few degrees above horizontal, a little to the right of due east, about 25 minutes before sunrise. Good luck.

Venus, bright at magnitude –3.9, gleams low in the western evening twilight, a bit higher each week. Fifty minutes after sunset, find it about a fist at arm's length (10°) above horizontal. It sets soon after the end of twilight.

Jupiter, magnitude –2.1, is second brightest only to Venus. It shines nearly overhead when you face southwest at nightfall. Later in the evening Jupiter swings lower toward the west. It sets around 2 or 3 a.m. daylight-saving time, on the west-northwest horizon.

In a telescope Jupiter is down to 39 arcseconds wide. It's shrinking and fading as Earth pulls farther ahead of it in our faster orbit around the Sun.

Three images of Jupiter on March 28, 2026, taken about 20 minutes apart, showing Jupiter's fast rotation — Jupiter's Great Red Spot side, imaged by Christopher Go on March 28th. North is up, celestial east is left. Io is in transit, near the central meridian by the last frame. Notice the unusual thin dark lines just north and east of the Red Spot.

On this side of Jupiter, the north edge of the North Equatorial Belt currently shows a few large "waves," at least two of which send tan festoons trailing into the bright North Tropical Zone. More such waves with festoons are waiting to rotate into view around Jupiter's eastern limb above. Contrast them with the larger, familiar blue festoons in the Equatorial Zone.

Blue features are gaps in the high clouds showing clear blue atmosphere below. The "air" on Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium, but it's blue for the same reason we have blue skies on Earth.

Jupiter's limb looks lightly bluish too. Here we're looking a long way (at a low angle) through Jupiter's *uppermost* clear air above the clouds.

Uranus (magnitude 5.8 in Taurus, 4° south of the Pleiades) is still some 30° high in the west at the end of twilight. At high power in a telescope it's a tiny but non-stellar dot, 3.5 arcseconds wide. You'll need a detailed finder chart to identify it among similar-looking faint stars.

All descriptions that relate to your horizon — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world's mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions and graphics that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) is Universal Time minus 4 hours. UT is also known as UTC, GMT, or Z time.

Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations. They're the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.

This is an outdoor nature hobby. For a more detailed constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy.

For the attitude every amateur astronomer needs, read Jennifer Willis's Modest Expectations Give Rise to Delight.

Once you get a telescope, to put it to good use you'll want a much more detailed, large-scale sky atlas (set of charts). The basic standard is the Pocket Sky Atlas, in either the original or Jumbo Edition. Both show all 30,000 stars to magnitude 7.6, and 1,500 deep-sky targets — star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies — to search out among them.

Pocket Sky Atlas cover, Jumbo edition — The Pocket Sky Atlas plots 30,796 stars to magnitude 7.6, and 1,500 telescopic galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae among them. Shown here is the Jumbo Edition, which is in hard covers and enlarged for easier reading in the dark by red flashlight. Sample charts. More about the current editions.

Next up is the larger and deeper Sky Atlas 2000.0, plotting stars to magnitude 8.5; nearly three times as many, as well as many more deep-sky objects. It's currently out of print, but maybe you can find one used.

The next up, once you know your way around well, are the even larger Interstellarum Deep-Sky Atlas (with 201,000+ stars to magnitude 9.5 and 14,000 deep-sky objects selected to be detectable by eye in very large amateur telescopes), and Uranometria 2000.0 (332,000 stars to mag 9.75, and 10,300 deep-sky objects).

For the necessary tricks, read How to Use a Star Chart with a Telescope. It applies just as much to electronic charts on your phone or tablet — which many observers find handier and more versatile, if sometimes less well designed and contextualized, than charts on paper.

You'll also want a good deep-sky guidebook. A beloved old classic is the three-volume Burnham's Celestial Handbook. It was my bedside reading for years. An impressive more modern one is the big Night Sky Observer's Guide set (2+ volumes) by Kepple and Sanner. The pinnacle for total astro-geeks is the new Annals of the Deep Sky series, currently at 11 volumes as it works its way forward through the constellations alphabetically. So far it's up to H.

Can computerized telescopes replace charts? Well, I used to say this:

"Not for beginners, I don't think, unless you prefer spending your time getting finicky technology to work rather than learning how to explore through the sky yourself. As Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer's Guide, 'A full appreciation of the universe cannot come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understanding how the sky works. This knowledge comes only by spending time under the stars with star maps in hand and a curious mind.' Without these, 'the sky never becomes a friendly place.' "

But, things do change. The technology has continued to improve and become more user-friendly — particularly with "plate solving" software that can now recognize any star field to determine exactly where the telescope is pointed — finally bypassing all aiming imperfections in the mount, tripod, gears, bearings and other mechanics, or in the user's skill in setting up.

The latest revolution is the rise of small, imaging-only "smartscopes." These take advantage of not only today's pointing technology, but also the vastly better capabilities of imaging chips and image processing compared to the human retina and visual cortex. The most sophisticated image stacking and processing can come built right in. The result is decent deep-sky imaging from shockingly small, low-priced units. The image may be viewable on your phone or computer as it builds up in real time. Some can directly enable contributions to citizen-science projects.

Smartscopes are changing the hobby at the entry level. For more on this revolution see Richard Wright's "The Rise of the Smart Telescopes" in the November 2025 Sky & Telescope. And read the magazine's review of this especially small one.

If you get a larger, more conventional computerized scope that you can look through, make sure that its drives can be disengaged so you can swing it around and point it readily by hand when you want to, rather than only slowly by the electric motors (which eat batteries).

Audio sky tour. Out under the evening sky with your
earbuds in place, listen to Kelly Beatty's monthly
podcast tour of the naked-eye heavens above. It's free.

"The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking, it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before."
— Carl Sagan, 1996

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
— John Adams, 1770

"Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
— Voltaire, 1765

About Alan MacRobert

Alan M. MacRobert became an avid Sky & Telescope subscriber in 1966 at age 14, joined the editorial staff in 1982, and is now a senior contributing editor, semi-retired. He played a role in practically every part of the magazine and the company's other products for more than a generation, both on the amateur-observing side and the science-reporting side. In 1994 a book collection of his observing how-tos and telescopic sky tours was published as Star Hopping for Backyard Astronomers. He has produced This Week's Sky at a Glance online every week since 1989.