With fall now upon us, many of us will be dusting off our binoculars and telescopes ready for the longer nights this season brings. Earlier sunsets mean more stargazing hours, and we’ll start to see the return of some favorite celestial sights and deep-sky objects that we haven’t seen since before spring.
Fall is also an excellent time for casual stargazers, with the earlier evenings and cooler temperatures offering a comfortable compromise before we head into those freezing winter nights when we can’t feel our toes. Don’t worry if you’re just starting out and don’t have any gear yet, as many of this season’s celestial objects are visible with the naked eye — and some are actually best viewed that way.
This September, October and November are great times to view the distant planets at opposition, catch several meteor showers and photograph far-flung galaxies and nebulas with your smart telescope. Plus, November brings the first full supermoon of the year. So, grab your telescope, your headlamp and a cozy sweater, and let’s see what lies ahead.
Lunar & Planetary events
Neptune at opposition
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Neptune reaches opposition on September 26 at 02:00 UTC, which is the best time to view it at its brightest, magnitude +7.8. Unfortunately, the full moon will somewhat ruin the party, and Neptune isn’t particularly easy to spot at the best of times. That said, the opposition window lasts for several weeks, so waiting a couple of weeks to observe during the new moon week won’t make any noticeable difference.
You’ll need a good telescope to spot the big blue planet — at least a 6-inch aperture, although an 8-inch or bigger will give you the best chance. Make sure you have a good quality, high-powered eyepiece (something like a 6mm or 9mm) or a good Barlow lens to boost the magnification of your existing eyepieces.
But even with high magnification, Neptune will only appear as a small disc with a bluish hue — you won’t see any cloud bands or surface features, because it’s just too far away. Still, it’s worth trying to get a glimpse anyway.
Saturn at opposition
(Image credit: NASA / Hubble)
A week later, on October 4 at 12:00 UTC, Saturn reaches opposition, shining at magnitude +0.3. It will be easily visible to the naked eye, although to see Saturn’s rings or any of its largest moons, you’ll need a telescope.
The moon will be just below 50% illuminated and doesn’t rise until past midnight, so you’ll have a good portion of the late evening to observe Saturn while it’s high in the sky before the moonlight affects visibility. Even though the rings are only partially tilted, you can still make out a lovely golden oval around the planet, and in larger telescopes you’ll be able to spot the Cassini division. We recommend a telescope with at least 4 or 5 inches of aperture, and a good quality, high-powered eyepiece to observe the finer details.
Full supermoon
(Image credit: Dawn Villwok-Joerg/Getty Images)
November 24 brings the first full supermoon of fall/winter, when the bright Beaver Moon will light up the skies, shining around 15% brighter than a normal full moon.
You can enjoy this moon without any gear whatsoever, but observing with binoculars or a telescope, or capturing its magnificence with a camera, makes the experience much more enjoyable.
Until then, you can catch the other full moons of the season on September 26 and October 26.
Uranus at opposition
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The third planetary opposition of the fall belongs to Uranus on November 25 at 23:00 UTC. But like Neptune in September, the almost full moon will dampen its visibility, so we’d recommend waiting until the new moon week.
Like the other outer planets, you’ll need a larger telescope with an aperture of at least 6 or 8 inches to view Uranus, alongside a good quality, high-powered eyepiece for the best views. These larger scopes gather enough light to distinguish Uranus’s turquoise color, although you’ll need to go even bigger if you want to see its brightest moons.
Meteor showers
Draconids
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The first meteor shower of the season — and unlike most showers, which involve a lot of caffeine and an all-nighter, the Draconids are best seen in the late evening instead of the dead of night.
This meteor shower is active between October 6-10, peaking on the night of October 8-9. With the radiant point in Draco being highest at nightfall and the thin crescent moon not causing any interference, the best viewing hours are in the late evening before midnight.
These meteors are leftover debris from comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and you can expect to see around 6-10 meteors per hour under ideal conditions.
Orionids
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The Orionid meteor shower happens every October, when Earth passes through the trail of debris from Halley’s Comet. In 2026, it’s active between October 2 and November 7, with the peak occurring on the night of October 21-22. This shower brings between 10 and 20 meteors per hour under dark skies, radiating from the Orion constellation.
The waxing gibbous moon during the peak will add a fair bit of light pollution, but the moon will set between 03:12 am and 04:15 am depending on where in the States you’re watching from, so you’ll have a few hours before dawn to catch the darkest skies. You just need your eyes and clear, dark skies to see them, and a good astrophotography camera equipped with a wide-angle lens is perfect for capturing photos.
Taurids
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The Taurids meteor shower comes in two parts. The first is the Southern Taurids, active between September 10 and November 20, peaking on the night of November 4-5 (during a thin waning crescent moon). The Northern Taurids come slightly later and are active between October 20 and December 10, peaking on November 12 (during an even smaller waxing crescent moon).
The hit rate is one of the lowest of all the meteor showers, with only around 5 meteors per hour. However, the Taurids are known for producing bright, slower-moving fireballs that linger in the sky — making them a particularly appealing astrophotography target.
Peak viewing time will be around midnight, when the Taurus constellation reaches its highest point in the sky.
Leonids
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Radiating from the Leo constellation, the Leonids come from the dust and debris left behind by comet 55P/Tempel–Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 33 years. They produce between 10 and 15 meteors per hour, and the shower period runs from November 6 to November 30, with the peak falling on the night of November 17-18.
The first quarter moon will set around midnight, making way for the best of the shower between midnight and 4 am in totally dark skies.
Star clusters and constellations
Pleiades (and Hyades)
(Image credit: Giulio Ercolani / Alamy)
A favorite among many stargazers, the Pleiades (M45), an open cluster known as the “seven sisters” in the constellation of Taurus, slowly returns to the night sky this fall. By October, it rises in the east a couple of hours after sunset and is visible from dusk to dawn from November. Although it’s about 440 light-years from Earth, you can see it with the naked eye under dark conditions — even though it’s usually just a faint, fuzzy patch — but binoculars or a telescope provide a much more impressive view.
As Greek mythology has it, the sisters — named Maia, Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Taygete, Electra and Merope — were the daughters of the Titan Atlas and Pleione. The story is that Zeus transformed them into a cluster of stars to escape the relentless pursuit of the giant hunter Orion, who fell in love with the sisters and chased them for seven years. It seems he couldn’t take the hint.
Look below the Pleiades, and you’ll find their five half-sisters, the Hyades — an open cluster which makes up the V-shaped face of Taurus, the Bull.
The Pleiades are a fantastic target to capture with a smart telescope. If you want to stack multiple sessions across fall and winter, start in late November when they’re high in the sky. You want an altitude of 50 degrees or higher, and ideally 60 degrees or more. The cluster itself is easy to capture, but the less atmosphere you’re looking through, the more you can pull out that delicate blue nebulosity, which is what takes an image of the Pleiades from good to spectacular.
Another enemy of that lovely blue glow is the moon, so make sure you’re imaging under completely dark skies with no more than around 25% moonlight. If you get a clear, moonless night, aim for 2-3 hours minimum to capture the faint nebulosity, and go for 3-5 hours for a really impressive image.
Pegasus
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The best time to see the Great Square of Pegasus is during the fall evenings between September and January, with October offering the clearest and highest views in the night sky.
This asterism is a large, prominent square shape made up of four bright stars in the eastern sky — Markab, Scheat, Algenib and Alpheratz — with the latter belonging to the neighboring constellation of Andromeda. The square is said to make up the body of the winged horse, and the four stars range from about 133 to 670 light-years away from Earth. Point a pair of binoculars at them, and they’ll reveal many more stars that are not visible to the naked eye.
Cassiopeia
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Cassiopeia is one of the Northern Hemisphere’s circumpolar constellations, so although it’s technically visible all year, it’s best seen during the autumn and winter months. Throughout the fall, it climbs higher and higher in the sky, reaching its upper culmination in mid-November, when it is best viewed between 9 pm and midnight.
Depending on its rotation in the sky, Cassiopeia appears as a “W” or “M” shape made up of five bright stars ranging from 19 to 425 light-years away and visible with the naked eye.
Cassiopeia was a vain, arrogant queen in Greek mythology, and after boasting that she and her daughter, Andromeda, were more beautiful than the Nereids, the gods placed her in the sky tied to her throne, where she spends half of the year upside down as punishment for her vanity.
The Owl Cluster
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In addition to the constellation itself, there are some fun hidden objects within Cassiopeia that require binoculars or a telescope. The Owl Cluster (NGC 457) is a bright, open star cluster near the bottom-left star of the W shape, containing around 150 stars (although only 60 are identified as true cluster members), and is roughly 8,000 light-years from Earth. The blue and yellow “eyes” consist of the stars Phi Cassiopeiae (magnitude +5.0) and HD 7902 (magnitude +7.0).
You’ll need a pair of astronomy binoculars to see it — go for 15×70 for a decent view, or 20×80 for an even better observation.
Caroline’s Rose
(Image credit: Alan Dyer/StockTrek Via Getty Images)
Caroline’s Rose (NGC 7789) is another open cluster in Cassiopeia, situated close to the last of the five bright stars in the “W” shape. Astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered the cluster in 1783 and it contains over 1,000 confirmed member stars, with estimates suggesting up to 3,000 potential stars.
It was named “Caroline’s Rose” or the “White Rose” because its winding loops of stars and dark empty lanes resemble the petals of a cosmic rose, and it is estimated to be around 1.4 to 1.7 billion years old.
You can see it with a pair of binoculars under reasonably dark skies, but the best views will come from a telescope.
Deep-sky nebulas & galaxies
Andromeda galaxy
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Our closest neighboring galaxy, Andromeda (M31), is about 2.5 million light-years from Earth and may one day collide with the Milky Way (“one day” being a 50/50 chance around 10 billion years from now, according to new research). But until then, we can easily make do with observing from afar with binoculars and telescopes.
October and November are prime evening viewing time, with the galaxy reaching its highest point between 7 pm and 11 pm. Under clear, dark skies, it’s the most distant object visible to the naked eye, appearing as a very faint smudge — provided you know where to look. Binoculars provide a marginally better view of a somewhat larger, slightly brighter faint smudge — we’ve managed to see it with a pair of 8×25s under dark skies — but for the best views, you want a telescope.
It’s a great first target for beginners using a smart telescope, with the prominent dust lanes revealing themselves after 30-60 minutes. If you want more detailed images of the faint outer arms, leave it for 3-4 hours. Moonlight can wash out the faint galactic arms and dust lanes, so if possible, choose a dark night with minimal light pollution.
In Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of the aforementioned Cassiopeia. After angering the sea god Poseidon, Cassiopeia (who was not exactly Mother of the Year) chained Andromeda to a rock as a human sacrifice to the sea monster, Cetus, that Poseidon had sent to ravage their kingdom’s coast. Andromeda was saved by Perseus, who she then married, and after her death, Athena placed her in the stars as a constellation.
Helix Nebula
(Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/Univ Mexico/S. Estrada-Dorado et al.; Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI (M. Meixner)/NRAO (T.A. Rector); Infrared: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand)
The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) is a large planetary nebula around 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Often called the “Eye of God”, it has a striking eye-like appearance, and it features thousands of comet-like radial filaments and complex gas rings.
It stays relatively low in the southern sky, with September being the best time to view or photograph before it gradually sinks over the coming months. Moonlight will completely wash out its faint outer gaseous ring, so it’s best to shoot during a new moon (or when the moon hasn’t yet risen) to get the best image possible.
The best hours to capture it are between about 10:30 am and 2 am, when it’s either rising or at its highest. This should get you a pretty decent standard image, but if you want more detail, try to capture it over several nights to pull in the faint outer nebulosity and stack the images.
Triangulum Galaxy
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is the third-largest in our local group of galaxies, behind the Milky Way and Andromeda. This stunning spiral galaxy — not to be confused with the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), which is best seen in the spring — sits in the small Triangulum constellation about 2.7 million light-years from Earth and is a great astrophotography target.
Its peak viewing time is October to December, when its highest and clearest position is after dark in the late evening. Because it’s so faint, you need a moonless night away from light pollution. The sweet spot for smart telescopes is around 90 minutes, but if you can shoot for longer or want to split your shoot across multiple nights, 2.5 to 4+ hours can bring out more detail in the core and spiral arm.
Heart and Soul Nebula
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The Heart and Soul Nebula is a nebula complex consisting of two massive emission nebulas located about 6,000 to 7,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. They are primarily made of glowing ionized hydrogen gas, darker cosmic dust lanes and trace amounts of ionized oxygen and sulfur.
Like most other nebulas, they aren’t visible to the naked eye, so you’ll need a telescope or a long-exposure astrophotography setup to see them. The Heart Nebula (IC 1805) is, unsurprisingly, named after its heart-like shape, while its neighbor, the Soul Nebula (IC 1848), has a more irregular shape with large cavities made by stellar winds.
If you’re imaging the Heart and Soul with a camera or smart telescope, a total integration time of 6 to 12 hours will provide you with the cleanest details and most contrast in the faint gas structures. That said, 2 to 4 hours will give you a good basic stacked image.
As Cassiopeia is at its highest in the fall, this is the best time to see and photograph it with the least amount of atmospheric interference.
Ghost of Cassiopeia
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The Ghost of Cassiopeia, often referred to as the Ghost Nebula (IC 63), is a mixed reflection and emission nebula around 550 light-years away in Cassiopeia. Its eerie red glow is caused by its proximity to the nearby blue giant star, Gamma Cassiopeiae, which sits right in the middle of the constellation’s distinctive ‘W’ shape. The star’s powerful ultraviolet radiation causes the hydrogen to emit a soft red glow, while the surrounding dust reflects the star’s light in fainter blue hues.
Like the other celestial sights in Cassiopeia, autumn and winter evenings are the best times to see and photograph it due to its high altitude in the sky. As the nebula is so faint and elusive to capture, you can only see it with a smart telescope or a long-exposure astrophotography setup.
When it comes to integration time, the longer the better. Aim for 3-5 hours minimum, ideally 6+ hours if the skies allow, and avoid shooting during moonlight if you can.