The Night Sky ｜ May 2026 ｜ Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower ｜ Comet PANSTARRS ｜ Flower Moon

A major meteor shower peaks and a comet continues to put on a show for the Southern Hemisphere. Let's take a look at what you can go out to see in the night sky for May of 2026. I'm Michael Martin, and this is Late Night Astronomy. We begin with a major meteor shower this month that comes from the remnants of Halley's Comet. The Etta Aquarids meteor shower is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere, and to see it, you'll want to go outside after midnight in the early morning of May 6th and look towards the east starting around 2 a.m. As the constellation Aquarius rises into the early morning sky, more and more meteors will become visible shooting from this part of the sky. Sadly, this year a waning gibbous moon will wash out many of the fainter meteors, bringing rates down this year to perhaps 10 to 20 meteors per hour. This is a difficult shower for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, with Aquarius not rising to a good height until after 4 a.m. If you're able to go out to see any meteors from this shower, please let us know where you saw them from and how many you saw in the comments section below. Our next major event this month is an update on Comet C2025 R3 Pan-STARRS. After surviving its closest approach to the Sun in April, it now puts on a show for the Southern Hemisphere that'll be best viewed with a pair of binoculars or a telescope. To see it, go outside about an hour and a half after the Sun is set and face towards the west, as it makes its way through the constellation Eridanus. As we get deeper into May, Comet Pan-STARRS will continue to dim, with it probably ending the month around magnitude 8 or 9. But it will also rise higher each night, allowing the sky to darken further for some nice views of it with a telescope traveling through the constellation Orion. Around the night of May 10th, it will make a close pass to the Orion Nebula, creating some great opportunities to photograph it for those of you who do astrophotography. If you've been able to see or image this comet throughout April or May, please let us know about your experience in the comments section below. Our journey through the night sky continues with our best views of the moon this month, and let's begin with its phases, starting with a full moon on May 1st, last quarter moon on the 9th, a new moon on the 16th, a first quarter moon on the 23rd, and a second new moon, also known as a blue moon, finishing out the month on May 31st. The moon also makes several close passes to objects in the night sky this month. The first of these occur on May 13th with Saturn, followed by Mars on the 14th, Venus on the 18th, Jupiter on the 20th, and M44, the beehive cluster, on May 21st. Let's move on to the planets of our solar system and begin with the two brightest in the night sky, Venus and Jupiter. Right after sunset, you'll see Venus and Jupiter pop into view as the sky begins to darken. As we move through May, Venus will continue to rise higher in the western sky, and will keep getting closer to Jupiter. In fact, these two planets will make a close pass to each other that we'll talk more about in our June edition of the night sky. About halfway through the month, Mercury will begin to rise above the horizon and will join Venus and Jupiter in the west, leading to some nice views of these three planets lined up with the naked eye, a pair of binoculars, and a telescope. Let's move on now to our deep sky challenge of the month. After a year of working on the Herschel 400 list of objects through the Astronomical League, I'm roughly halfway through that catalog, and it's been an impressive journey so far. I'm going to continue my journey this May in the constellation Virgo, and let's take a look at some of the galaxies you can see that are impressive, yet sometimes faint, in this part of the night sky. To see them, go outside about an hour and a half after sunset and face towards the south, and look up until you come across the constellation Virgo. Begin by putting your finderscope on the star Vindemiatrix. Using this finderscope, which is showing us about a five degree field of view of the night sky, we're going to move into a rich field of galaxies until we come across a collection of brighter ones that look like a hook or a chain. At this point, I'm switch to my lowest powered eyepiece to zoom in and start doing my observations. The most impressive part of Virgo to me, and several galaxies I'll be observing and documenting this month for the Herschel 400, are in and around what's known as Markarian's Chain, a formation of eight galaxies that lie roughly 50 million light years away from Earth. One of the more interesting parts of the chain are called the Eyes Galaxies. Let's move up to around 100 times magnification to observe this famous pair of galaxies that resemble two massive galactic eyes looking back at you. Moving up the chain, we get some less bright galaxies that will require a dark sky and larger telescopes. I captured this image of Markarian's Chain a few years ago, and I'm always amazed by the density of galaxies in this part of the sky. Remember that each of these galaxies hold hundreds of billions of stars, and their light has taken tens of millions of years to get to your eye in your backyard. Thanks for joining us on our journey through the night sky. If you enjoyed this video, please like it and consider subscribing to this channel to get more updates on what you can go out to see in the heavens above. But most importantly, let us know what you're hoping to get out to observe and image in the comments section below. Thank you all so much for your continued support, and clear skies from Late Night Astronomy.