UK Night Sky This Week

🌗 This Week's Highlight: The Moon's Morning Tour of Saturn, the Pleiades and Mars

The headline this week is a lovely three-act show in the morning sky. As the Moon wanes from Last Quarter (reached at 20:29 BST on Tuesday 7 July), it slides night by night along the line of the pre-dawn planets. First stop: Wednesday 8 July, when the half-lit Moon sits beside golden Saturn in the south-east from about 01:30 BST until dawn — the easiest way you'll ever find the ringed planet.

Then comes the weekend finale. Before dawn on Saturday 11 July, a slimming crescent Moon passes right by the Pleiades star cluster low in the east-north-east — a beautiful binocular pairing, with the crescent glowing softly with earthshine. And on Sunday 12 July, the crescent moves on to sit near reddish Mars and the bright orange star Aldebaran in Taurus. Look east-north-east from about 03:30 BST, roughly an hour to ninety minutes before sunrise.

None of this needs a telescope — the naked eye or a pair of binoculars is perfect, though you'll want a low, unobstructed eastern horizon for the weekend mornings. And there's a bonus for night owls who can't face a 3am alarm: with the Moon rising after midnight all week, every evening is moonless — the darkest evening skies since May, and prime time to look north after 23:00 BST for the eerie electric-blue shimmer of noctilucent clouds, now at the peak of their short summer season.

🌟 Planets Visible from the UK This Week

🌛 The Moon This Week

The Moon spends this week fading gracefully out of the evening sky. It reaches Last Quarter at 20:29 BST on Tuesday 7 July, rising around midnight and hanging half-lit in the morning sky, then thins to a crescent through the second half of the week as it heads for New Moon on 14 July. That means every evening this week is moonless — the best run of dark evenings since May.

For early risers the waning Moon becomes the week's tour guide. It stands beside Saturn before dawn on Wednesday 8 July, brushes past the Pleiades on Saturday 11 July, and finishes next to Mars and Aldebaran on Sunday 12 July. The weekend crescents are the prettiest — thin enough to show earthshine, the ghostly glow of the Moon's night side lit by sunlight reflecting off the Earth.

One honest caveat: we're still only a few weeks past the solstice, so most of the UK gets no true astronomical darkness yet — the sky never goes fully black, especially in Scotland. But with no Moon about, the couple of hours around 23:30–01:30 BST are as dark as it gets, and that's plenty for the brighter deep-sky showpieces below.

🌌 Deep Sky Targets for UK Observers This Week

With the Moon out of the evening sky all week, this is the best deep-sky window we've had in a while — the only limit is the lingering summer twilight, so aim for the darkest slot around 23:30–01:30 BST and start with the brighter showpieces. Here's where to point binoculars or a small telescope this week:

• M13 — Great Hercules Globular Cluster — the finest globular in the northern sky, and with no Moon about it's an easy binocular catch high in the south-west as darkness falls. A small telescope starts to resolve its outer stars into a glittering swarm — one of the most satisfying objects of the whole summer.
• M57 — the Ring Nebula in Lyra — a moonless week is your chance at this famous smoke-ring of a dying star, sitting conveniently between the two lower stars of Lyra, just below brilliant Vega. Small in any telescope but unmistakable at 100× — a proper "wow, I found it" object.
• Albireo (Beta Cygni) — one of the finest coloured double stars in the sky, high in the east by 23:30 BST. A small telescope at modest magnification splits it into a golden star paired with a vivid blue-white companion — colours that look almost painted on.
• Noctilucent clouds — not deep sky, but July is their peak season and a moonless week helps. Look low to the north between about 23:00 BST and 01:00 for wispy, electric-blue tendrils glowing after everything else has faded. They're ice clouds at the edge of space, 80 km up — no other cloud shines at night.
• The Summer Triangle & the Milky Way — Vega, Deneb and Altair now ride high through the whole night. From a dark rural site in the darkest hour, sweep binoculars through Cygnus and you'll pick up the soft star-clouds of the summer Milky Way — the first decent look at it since spring.

🔔 Get Alerts for Clear Nights

📅 Night-by-Night Planner: 6 – 12 July 2026

Sunset ~21:15 BST · No true astronomical darkness for most of the UK · All times BST · Moonless evenings all week — Moon rises after midnight

📖 Go Deeper

🔭 What to use this week

This is a binocular week. The waning Moon's morning tour — beside Saturn on the 8th, the Pleiades on the 11th and Mars on the 12th — is made for a pair of binoculars, which frame the crescent Moon, its earthshine and the star cluster together in one view. The same pair catches Venus next to Regulus in the evening twilight on the 9th. For Saturn's rings before dawn, a small telescope is the tool.

FLO links use our referral code — same price for you, small commission for us.