Home / Science / Astronomy and space / Observing / Sky events calendarTool #16

Astronomy calendar: Moon phases, meteor showers, eclipses and planet events by month

A month-by-month sky calendar for your place: Moon phases and how much is lit each night, meteor shower peaks, eclipses you can see, planet oppositions and elongations, and equinoxes, with a one-tap calendar file.

Keep it one tap away for everyday use.

Bookmark Sky events calendar?

Press Ctrl + D now. Your browser opens its own bookmark box, where you choose the name and folder.

  1. Your place
  2. Pick a month
  3. See events
  4. Add to diary
Nothing is uploadedWorks offline once open

Each day shows how much of the Moon is lit. Tap a day to see that night's sky.

Events this month

    Download

    The sky’s diary, worked out for where you live

    Some nights matter more than others. A new Moon means dark skies for faint galaxies. A meteor shower peak with no Moon is worth staying up for. A planet at opposition is at its closest and brightest. An eclipse might be visible only from your side of the world. This calendar collects them month by month and works out the exact times in your own time zone. It also checks whether eclipses can be seen from your place.

    How to use it

    1. Set your place at the top. Eclipse visibility and local times depend on where you are. Your location stays on your device.
    2. Use ‹ and › to move between months. Each day shows how much of the Moon is lit at 10 pm, so the darkest stretches are easy to spot.
    3. Tap any day to open Sky tonight for that date, with planets, dark hours and the best objects.
    4. Events this month lists each event with its local time and a one-line note on why it matters.
    5. Add to my calendar downloads a standard .ics file. Open it with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, and the events are added to your own calendar.
    6. Download the month as an image, PDF or Word file to print or share with your astronomy club.

    What is included

    • Moon phases: new Moon, first quarter, full Moon and last quarter, plus perigee (closest) and apogee (farthest).
    • Meteor showers: the 11 major annual showers with their typical peak rate (ZHR) and how bright the Moon is that night. Peak dates shift by about a day from year to year. The International Meteor Organization (imo.net) publishes exact times each year, so check there before a big night.
    • Eclipses: lunar eclipses (with whether the Moon is up for you at mid-eclipse) and solar eclipses as seen from your place, with how much of the Sun is covered. Never look at the Sun without a certified solar filter.
    • Planets: greatest elongations of Mercury and Venus (the best time to spot them) and oppositions of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
    • Seasons: equinoxes and solstices.

    Worked example

    Pick December 2026 from Toronto. The Geminids, the richest shower of the year at up to 150 meteors an hour, peak around 14 December. The calendar shows the Moon’s brightness for that night and the nights around it, so you can pick the darkest one. Tap the 13th to see when the radiant in Gemini rises and what else is up.

    Questions

    How accurate are the times? Moon phases, eclipses and planet events come from astronomy-engine and are accurate to about a minute. Meteor shower dates are the usual peak dates and can move by a day.

    Do I need to be online? No. Once the page has loaded, every month can be worked out offline, years ahead or back.

    Where the numbers come from

    • Sun, Moon and planet positions: astronomy-engine by Don Cross (MIT licence), accurate to about an arcminute.
    • City coordinates and time zones: public geographic facts, typed by fibub.
    • Meteor shower dates and rates: typical values from the International Meteor Organization's shower calendar, rounded.

    Standard scientific values, such as constants, atomic weights and melting points, are facts found in every textbook; we name where ours were checked. If you are an author or publisher and want a value, a credit or a table changed or removed, tell us and we will act quickly.

    Last updated 2026-11-07.

    Change log for Sky events calendar

    1. Show where each science tool's numbers come from, with a removal-request link Details on GitHub
    2. Tool #numbers, the name's meaning, and the MIT License Details on GitHub
    3. Ten astronomy tools on the Science shelf, with PNG, PDF and Word downloads Details on GitHub

    Every change to fibub

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