Observing

Full disc of the Moon showing maria and craters, imaged by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Celestial event

May 31 brings a Blue Micromoon — the smallest full moon of 2026

On May 31 at 08:45 UTC, the Moon reaches full phase for the second time this month. That second-in-a-month qualifier makes it a Blue Moon by the modern calendar definition. It also happens to sit near apogee — 406,135 km from Earth — making it a Micromoon: roughly 5.5% smaller in angular diameter and about 10% dimmer than an average full moon. It’s the most distant full moon of 2026. And if you walk outside that night expecting something visibly unusual, you’ll be disappointed. ...

A bright meteor streaks across the Milky Way during the Perseid meteor shower, photographed in a 30-second exposure from Spruce Knob, West Virginia

Celestial event

Eta Aquariids 2026: what to expect from tonight's peak with an 84% moon

The Eta Aquariids peaked at 03:51 UTC on May 5, but this shower has a broad maximum — activity tonight and tomorrow morning (May 6–7) will be nearly as strong as peak night. The problem isn’t timing. It’s the moon: an 84%-illuminated waning gibbous will sit above the horizon during the entire pre-dawn window when the radiant is highest. That cuts your visible count roughly in half compared to a moonless year. ...

Gear

Binoculars or a first telescope? What I actually tell beginners in 2026

If you have €120–€180 and you’ve never owned an astronomy instrument, buy a pair of 10×50 binoculars. Don’t buy a telescope. I’ve watched too many friends spend €200 on a wobbly 70mm department-store refractor, see Saturn as a tiny pixel-blur once, and shelve the thing for good. There’s exactly one case where that advice flips, and I’ll get to it. But the default answer, for the person walking into this hobby with no gear and no specific target in mind, is binoculars. ...

Amateur astronomers preparing telescopes under a starry night sky

Beginner stargazing

Dark adaptation, explained: why your eyes need 30 minutes to see real stars

The first time I drove from Nicosia up to Troodos for a moonless night, I got out of the car, looked up, and was disappointed. I could see the Milky Way, but it was a thin grey smear, not the structured river I’d been promised. So I sat down on the camping chair, put my phone away, and waited. About twenty minutes later I looked up again. The same patch of sky now had texture: a dark rift through Cygnus, the unresolved haze around Sagittarius, individual dust lanes I hadn’t seen at all on the first look. ...

Celestial event

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) after perihelion: an honest field report from 35°N

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) passed perihelion on April 19, 2026 at 0.499 AU from the Sun, then made its closest pass of Earth on April 26 at 0.489 AU (about 73 million km). For a few days around peak it pulled to roughly magnitude +3 to +5, depending on whose visual estimate you trust on the COBS database. Bright enough to spot in dark-sky binoculars, faint enough that nobody from the Northern Mediterranean was going to call it a naked-eye showpiece. ...

A Lyrid meteor streaks across a dark starfield in this 2022 photograph

Celestial event

The 2026 Lyrids are done. The Eta Aquariids are next, and the moon is going to fight you

The Lyrids peaked around 19:40 UT on April 22 — essentially yesterday evening for anyone in Europe. Conditions were as good as this shower gets: a new moon on April 17 meant only a thin crescent in the sky, and it set before 10 pm local, leaving the prime post-midnight hours properly dark. Under a clean dark site the International Meteor Organization expected 18–20 meteors per hour at the peak. From a light-polluted backyard, Space.com put realistic rates closer to 8–12/hour. ...