Sky Tour Podcast for January 2026

This month’s episode is sponsored by Celestron, manufacturer of high-quality telescopes and an industry leader in developing exciting optical products with revolutionary technologies.
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I’m Kelly Beatty of Sky & Telescope magazine, and tonight we’re going on a tour of the stars and planets that you’ll see overhead during January. We’ll start with one of the year’s best meteor showers, spend some time with Saturn and Jupiter; size up a mythical queen with an ego problem; and explore a celestial hunter who, uh, also has an ego problem. 
So bundle up, grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.
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Well, 2025 is behind us and 2026 has begun. Every January millions of us resolve to do something, anything, different or better in the coming year. I suppose my resolution would be to get outside and enjoy the night sky more. It’ll be tough — often I’m too busy, or too tired, or … well, you get the picture. So howzabout you and I agree to do more skygazing this coming year, OK?
We’ll want to make good on that pledge right away, because an excellent opportunity occurs in the first week of January, with the arrival of the Quadrantid meteor shower. These meteors get their name from Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation near the handle of the Big Dipper, and they seem to radiate from that point in the sky. 
Viewed from perfectly dark skies, the “Quads” can deliver up to 1 meteor per minute. But few of us ever see anything close to that, for a few reasons. First, the shower’s maximum activity lasts only several hours and is easy to miss. And unfortunately this year the peak arrives on the afternoon of January 3rd, as seen from the Americas. Second, for most of us that radiant point near the Big Dipper is below the northern horizon until 1 or 2 a.m. And no radiant means no meteors. And, third, this year a full Moon occurs on the same night as the shower’s peak. Bummer! But I would never ever dissuade you from trying to see at least a few of these shooting stars, so by all means give it a try.
Another celestial event occurs in the first week of the New Year, though you can’t really watch this one. On January 3rd, at 12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Earth is closer to our star than it’ll be at any time for the rest of the year — 91,400,000 miles away. Can’t you just feel all that extra warmth? Mmmm.
Honestly, being 3 million miles closer to the Sun won’t affect the temperature much, but it does mean that Earth is zipping along its orbit about 2,200 mph faster now than it will be in July. And that does have a tangible effect, particularly on the times of sunrise and sunset if you live at higher latitudes. Here in Boston, for example, sunset comes a minute later each day throughout most of January. Those long winter nights are starting to shorten up in a hurry!
Let’s take a quick check on the Moon’s whereabouts. As I mentioned, full Moon is on the 3rd. Because the Sun is so far south in the sky this time of year, the Moon is quite far to the north. So stay out late that night and you’ll be surprised by how close the Moon is to being directly overhead! Last quarter follows on January 10th and new Moon on the 18th. So beginning with the second week of the new year, your evenings will be free of moonlight. A lovely crescent pops back into view a few days thereafter, and the month wraps up with first quarter on the night of January 25th.
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Of the five planets visible by eye, three of them — Mercury, Venus, and Mars — are bunched closely together very close to the Sun in the sky and thus out of view this whole month. That leaves Jupiter and Saturn to entertain us. You Sky Tour regulars know that I’ve been talking about Saturn for the past several months. Right now you’ll find it fairly high in the southwest after even twilight fades. Speaking of fading, Earth is sliding farther from Saturn night by night, and consequently this ringed giant is only two-thirds as bright now as it was last July, Still, it’s easy to spot because there aren’t any other bright stars in its vicinity.
Now, Jupiter is a whole different situation. Our solar system’s largest planet reaches what’s called opposition on January 9th. That is, it appears opposite the Sun in our sky — when the Sun sets, Jupiter rises; when the Sun rises, it sets. But also this is when Jupiter appears its closest to Earth. And, wow, it’s dazzlingly bright after it rises in the east in early evening. To Jupiter’s upper left are the stars Pollux and slightly fainter Castor, the Twins of Gemini. 
Like every other planet, Jupiter doesn’t shine by itself but instead is reflecting sunlight back toward us. Jupiter’s great size, 11 times the diameter of Earth, combined with the highly reflective clouds in its atmosphere, are what make it look so bright despite being 400 million miles away.
As you gaze at Jupiter, imagine that you’re standing in a certain garden in Padua, Italy, 416 years ago, on the night of January 7, 1610. On that date Jupiter was roughly in this same part of the evening sky. Right next to you is Galileo Galilei, pointing one of his self-made telescopes at Jupiter for the first time. The telescope magnifies only 20 times — yet, to his amazement, Galileo glimpses three stars in a row alongside the planet. A few nights later, he spies a fourth. He soon realized that these must be moons orbiting around Jupiter, and today we know them as the Galilean satellites.
Now, if you’ve got some better-quality binoculars lying around the house, take them outside and point to Jupiter. Brace them against a tree or wall to steady the view. You’ll notice right away that Jupiter shows up as a small white disk. And you should be able to spot a couple of those moons too — most likely Ganymede and Callisto, each the size of the planet Mercury. Or try pointing your smartphone camera at them and zoom in. Of course, if you’ve got a telescope of any size, spotting these four moons is a slam dunk.
Honestly, if I could travel back in time to relive any moment in the entire history of astronomy, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than by Galileo’s side on that historic January night. I’m sure you’d come along if you could, right?
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Now let’s talk stars for a bit. The evening skies of January feature an incredible array of bright stars — more so than at any other time of the year. So what’s your favorite star pattern? It doesn’t have to be an entire constellation — it might be any obvious arrangement of bright stars, what astronomers call an asterism. Maybe it’s the Big Dipper, but right now that’s lying low along or even below the northern horizon, depending on your latitude. Another obvious asterism is the five-star zigzag of Cassiopeia. It looks like a squashed W in summertime, and like a flattened M in winter. After sunset, once it gets dark, face north and look almost straight up. There’s Cassiopeia in its “M” position. It’s a little wider than your clenched fist. Its left side is the brightest and easiest to see.
This grouping is the Big Dipper’s counterpart in the northern sky. In spring and summer, when the Dipper rides high, Cassiopeia lurks low. In fall and winter, it’s Cassiopeia’s turn to shine high over the evening world, while the Dipper sinks low behind the trees.
All five stars in this M asterism are truly big and bright, outshining the Sun by anywhere from 70 to 8,000 times. This impressive brightness, combined with being no more than a few hundred light-years away, is why you can spot this distinctive quintet almost at a glance from your driveway.
In Greek mythology, Cassiopeia was a queen in what’s now Ethiopia and also the mother of Andromeda. Her husband, King Cepheus, is marked by a pointed pentagon of stars below her; Andromeda is to her upper left. This mythical queen boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than all the Nereids, the nymphy daughters of the sea god Nereus. This was not a good idea. All that bragging brought the wrath of Poseidon upon the kingdom of Ethiopia. But that’s a complicated story for another time.
Ancient skywatchers not only subdivided the sky into constellations but also gave each noteworthy star its own proper name. Some of these came from various cultures and flukes of folklore, but often they simply told the body part that the star supposedly represented in its constellation figure. For instance, although the middle star in Cassiopeia’s M has no official name, the ones on either side of it — plus the bright one at the left end — are named Caph, Schedar, and Ruchbah (RUKE-beh). These are medieval European corruptions of the Arabic words for hand, breast, and knee.
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Let’s leave the celestial queen and shift our gaze about 4 fists toward east. That bright star, almost overhead, is named Capella. It’s at the top-left corner of an irregular pentagon of stars that outlines the constellation Auriga (ar-RYE-guh, though I think ar-REE-guh is closer to its Latin root). This translates as “the charioteer,” one of 48 constellations recognized in ancient Roman times. However, this pattern was first recorded long before that, by skywatchers in Mesopotamia, who noted a constellation called “GAM” that represented a curved sword or crook. You can make out that arc using Capella as one end and then curving down and toward the right.
Auriga has also been seen as a goat-herder, first by long-ago Bedouins and later in Greek mythology. In fact, Capella takes its name from the Latin word for a small female goat, and just to its right is a faint triangle of stars called the Kids, as in “little goats”. To this day the constellation Auriga has something of a split personality — artists often depict it as a charioteer with a goat perched on his shoulders. But in ancient Hindu astronomy, Capella was important because it represented the heart of Brahma, the god of creation.
About four fists to the lower left of Capella, you’ll see the stars of Orion, the Hunter, striding up from the horizon early on January evenings. He’s joined by his two hunting dogs, marked by brilliant Sirius lower down and Procyon to his left. 
In Greek mythology, Orion was a gigantic, supernaturally strong hunter who also thought very highly of himself, and he had a lecherous eye for the ladies. Here’s what I mean: Look to Orion’s upper right by about twice the width of your clenched fist held at arm’s length. The bright star you see there is Aldebaran, marking the eye of Taurus, the Bull. Now look past Aldebaran by another fist, until you reach a small, faint cluster of stars. These are the Pleiades, who in Greek mythology were the daughters of Atlas. In many tellings, Orion pursued the sisters relentlessly, and to escape him, Zeus transformed them into stars. Today that chase continues eternally across the heavens.
Let’s get back to Orion. Look in particular for a trio of bright stars in a vertical row. These mark the hunter’s belt — yet another asterism — and there’s nothing else like them anywhere in the sky. To the belt’s upper left is the bright star Betelgeuse, which marks Orion’s shoulder. Maybe you’ve heard it called Beetlejuice, like that weird 1988 movie. Use whatever works for you. 
Study Betelgeuse a bit, and maybe you’ll notice that it’s got a warm color, like weak ginger ale. That’s because this is a red supergiant — a truly massive star that has swollen to tremendous size in its old age. But Betelgeuse still looks like a pinpoint in the sky because it’s very far away, about 650 light-years. 
On the right side of the Belt is Orion’s other really bright star, Rigel. Can you see the color difference between peachy Betelgeuse and icy-white Rigel. It might seem counterintuitive, but blue-white stars are the very hottest. Rigel’s surface temperature is more than 20,000° Fahrenheit, whereas Betelgeuse is only a third of that. Go figure!
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That’s about it for this episode. If you want more tips for viewing the night sky, including a free, interactive star chart for any time or date, check out our website, SkyandTelescope.org.
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Sky Tour is a production of Sky & Telescope, a division of the American Astronomical Society, and it’s produced by me, Kelly Beatty. 
Next month we’ll spend a little time with the part of the Milky Way you can see in winter, rather than in summer. Until then, I wish you clear skies.