The excitement of the new moon mission has potentially helped create a new generation of stargazers, just like the Apollo program did 60 years ago. These new observers will be looking for a beginner’s telescope that is easy to use and which can show them the craters on the moon in particular. The Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian could be the perfect entry point for them. It has a superb price-point for its aperture, and is capable of bringing not only the moon, but double stars, the brighter galaxies and nebulas and the moons of Jupiter to your backyard.

The Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian comes equipped with 8mm and 20mm eyepieces, one of which is intended specifically for the moon, as well as a red-dot finderscope, a moon filter, a moon-map poster and free access to download the Starry Night planetarium software and Celestron’s SkyPortal app, which is powered by SkySafari.

All in all, it will make an excellent package for someone to get started enjoying the night sky. Though the optics and accessories are not perfect, for the price their drawbacks can be overlooked, and as an entry-level telescope it paves the way for the user to graduate to increasingly more sophisticated telescopes at a later date.

Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian review

Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian: Design

• Quick and simple set-up
• Portable

The Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian comes out of its box complete, other than its eyepieces and red-dot finderscope in plastic bags. Set-up takes literally minutes — remove the plastic cap over the aperture and the cap on the focuser, insert your eyepiece of choice, screw on the finderscope and you are ready to go. No tools such as screwdrivers or Allen keys are needed— it is just a matter of unscrewing thumbscrews.

We found the finderscope went on easily — more about that later. However, the tiny thumbscrews that lock in the eyepiece were incredibly tight. Pliers didn’t help much and risked damaging the screw. In the end, we found elbow grease was just about enough to unscrew them, but if our review model is typical, then children will definitely need the help of an adult to unscrew these. Once they are unscrewed, they can be tightened to more forgiving tolerances.

Overall we can recommend the build quality of the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian. Everything is sturdily made, from the Dobsonian base, the optical tube, the easily adjustable tilt and focuser knobs. The mount has a single arm and rotates on a ‘lazy Susan’ turntable.

Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian: Performance

• Three
• Bullet
• Points

This is where we thought that the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian excelled. For such a small telescope, it was decently versatile.

For example, on the night of April 5, our first target was Jupiter, which was bright in Gemini, and unmistakable as it lay not far from the constellation’s twin stars Castor and Pollux. Jupiter appeared as a bright disk, with perhaps the merest hint of its banding — or was that our imagination? What certainly were real were the four Galilean moons: Io and Europa on one side, Ganymede and Callisto on the other. It was a sight sure to impress beginners and casual observers.

We moved the Celestron Moon Mission’s view towards the multiple star Castor, and the telescope capably split the main binary pair as two close, white stars using the 20mm eyepiece. Another popular multiple star is Mizar and Alcor in Ursa Major. Of course, Mizar and Alcor can be split with the naked eye, but the third visible star in the system is for telescopes only, and again the Celestron Moon Mission showed the three stars clearly.

Slewing east, Arcturus — the second brightest star visible from the U.K., and fourth brightest in the entire sky — appeared a glorious red, evoking its nature as a red giant.

While waiting for the moon to rise (and before taking some time out to watch the Artemis II coverage), we decided to track down some faint fuzzies. The box that the Celestron Moon Mission comes in highlights the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy as two deep sky objects that the telescope can see. At the time of testing, the Orion Nebula was too low in the west, while the Andromeda Galaxy was not visible. Instead, we hunted down two other nearby galaxies, M81 and M82, in Ursa Major.

Searching for these two galaxies, which are located next to each other in the same field of view, is where the real challenge of using the finderscope, as we described in the Functionality section, really reared its head. In the end, we decided to star hop to the galaxies and struck out in roughly the right direction. Soon the telescope alighted on the two galaxies, visible as two fuzzy patches of light. Looking at them straight on, we found it difficult to discern their shape, but by using averted vision as we looked through the 20mm eyepiece of the Celestron Moon Mission, we could make out the broad disk-shape of the spiral M81, and the elongated cigar shape of M82, and even caught hints of mottling with brighter spots in the edge-on M82 that are better seen in images.

After we watched the live NASA feed of Artemis II going around the far side of the moon, the moon finally rose from our location after midnight. Its phase was a waning gibbous three days after full. As such, the moon appeared bright and reddish, being low to the horizon. Through the 20mm we could see the whole disk, though the phase meant that for most of the lunar surface there was no contrast, making it harder to distinguish craters except for at the terminator.

Adding the 1.25-inch moon filter — more properly known as a neutral density filter that dims the incoming light — helped to limit the contrast and make the details stand out more. Switching to the 8mm eyepiece, with a magnification of 50x, the view jumped closer to the moon and the lunar surface filled the field of view, with bright crater rays visible on dark lunar mares.

Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian: Functionality

• Finderscope is awkward to use when pointed at the zenith
• Focusing is adequate
• Simple to use

The tabletop nature of the telescope poses some challenges for adults using it. As its name suggests, the telescope is designed to go on the top of a table. Usually when we think of Dobsonian telescopes, we think of very large instruments with very large apertures, and eyepieces close to standing height. This Dobsonian, on the other hand, is very small, and without a very tall table we found that we spent a lot of our time bent double looking through the eyepiece. Of course, this also means it is the perfect height for a child.

We found it did pose a problem when using the finderscope. For objects at low elevations, such as Jupiter in Gemini during spring 2026, we found it wasn’t too bad. However, when we wanted to direct the telescope towards Ursa Major at the zenith, the only way we could look through the finderscope was by literally getting on the floor to look through it. This is a problem with all tabletop telescopes, not just the Celestron Moon Mission, and it would be unfair to suggest otherwise — but it is a problem nonetheless.

Once we addressed the tightness of the focuser thumbscrews, we could switch the eyepieces in and out with ease. We found the focuser to be perfunctory. It provides only coarse focusing, with no careful fine-tuning, and sometimes it was tricky to find the sweet spot. Additionally, Newtonian reflectors like this one require collimating for perfect pin-sharp images. Collimating refers to adjusting the secondary mirror (the primary mirror is fixed at the base of the optical tube) so that it aligns and focuses light reflected from the primary just so. It’s also a fact that astronomers hate collimating, as it is a finicky procedure.

Out of the box, the collimation wasn’t bad, and we felt it was also unreasonable to expect beginners and children, whom this telescope is undoubtedly aimed at, to collimate the instrument with no guidance or tools included. Therefore, we reviewed the telescope as it came out of the box, to replicate the experience that beginners and children would receive. Had we collimated the telescope, then it probably would have improved the image a tad.

We found that actually using the telescope, in terms of positioning and pointing, was very simple. It’s worth remembering that Newtonian reflectors reverse their image (up becomes down), and after using smart telescopes, GoTo telescopes and Celestron’s StarSense telescopes with directions provided by a smartphone for so long, that took a little getting used to again! It may confuse beginners and children, but before the days of smart telescopes and GoTo, everybody had to get used to navigating across the sky using a reversed image, so it’s no bad thing.

Should you buy the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian

If you want to introduce your children to astronomy, then the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian is the perfect instrument. It is safe to use, with no risk of knocking something heavy over, as it weighs about the same as a bag of sugar, which is amazing really. It is simple to use, in the sense that it is just a matter of pushing and turning, although children might need assistance in pinpointing the location of targets. It’s also a fair all-rounder, as all Dobsonians are – it excels at showing the moon, displays the planets very well, and shows deep-sky objects as best it can for a 100mm-aperture telescope

If you want to see fainter galaxies and nebulae, then you will need a telescope with a larger aperture. If you want to do imaging, then you will need a telescope with a motorized equatorial drive to enable you to track the objects while imaging.

And if you want assistance in finding celestial objects without having to star-hop, then a GoTo or smart telescope might be best for you.

If the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian isn't for you

If you're looking to spend less, Celestron offers a smaller Dobsonian, the Celestron Firstscope 76. For a more flexible telescope, take a look at the Celestron Inspire 100Z. Or if neither fits the bill, we've rounded up the best telescopes and best beginner's telescopes.

How we tested the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian

We used the Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian during the occasional clear nights in the first two weeks of April 2026 from our south-facing garden in the United Kingdom. The temperature was clement, about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), with some modest light pollution to the north and dark skies to the south looking towards a more rural area.

We began observing after 10 pm, with the skies completely dark. The moon was near full at the time of testing — in fact, quite fittingly, one of the nights was the same night that the Artemis II mission went around the moon. However, the moon remained low the entire night, meaning it could only be viewed near moonrise after midnight, close to the horizon, before it became hidden behind a nearby bank of trees for the rest of the night.

If you've not seen the Milky Way this year from the Northern Hemisphere, it's time to make a plan. August's dark sky window opens around Aug. 6, when the moon begins to rise late at night as a waning crescent, meaning dark moonless skies for about 10 nights. That's when to see the Milky Way (and if you can time it for Aug. 12/13's Perseid meteor shower peak, all the better).

Five things are required to successfully see the Milky Way:

• the correct time of year (The brightest part is visible March-October)
• the correct moon phase (last-quarter moon through slim crescent moon)
• a dark sky away from light pollution
• dark-adapted eyes (stand in total darkness for 25 minutes)
• an idea of what you're going to see

The best way to dark-adapt your eyes is to start stargazing. Look south and begin picking out stars you know, paying special attention to the Summer Triangle. These three stars — Vega, Deneb and Altair — are your major signpost for finding the dense arc of starlight that will gradually emerge. Specifically, focus on the sky from Deneb through Altair — the left-hand side of the Summer Triangle — and you'll slowly see not only the Milky Way, but something else in front of it that few stargazers properly appreciate.

Sure, you can see the bright halo of gas and stars that indicate the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which is particularly bright below the Summer Triangle in the Sagittarius constellation. The closer you are to the equator, the higher in the sky, and the brighter, this region — known as the Galactic Center — will be.

Now look again. See those dark patches within the arc winding from Deneb to Altair? That's the Great Rift, so named because it appears to tear the Milky Way in half. It's an interstellar cloud of gas and dust (dark nebulas) between the solar system and the bright center of the Milky Way, which blocks and scatters visible light, essentially covering up bright stars and nebulas from our point of view. It looks like someone has spilled black ink across the Milky Way.

There are two ways of seeing the Great Rift. The most modern way is to observe it in infrared and radio light, which passes through the dust without being absorbed. This is exactly what some observatories are built to do, from radio dishes to the James Webb Space Telescope, which can probe the inner Milky Way — including the billions of stars in the center of our galaxy — which are on the other side of the Great Rift. Meanwhile, the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun observing the entire visible southern sky every few nights over the course of a decade, mapping the Milky Way (including the Great Rift) to answer questions about its structure and formation.

The second way to see the Great Rift is to see it for what it is. Astronomers call the section we're looking at the Cygnus Rift, also called the Northern Coalsack, 1,000-3,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It's just below Deneb (which is 1,500 light-years distant), slightly outside of the Summer Triangle over an otherwise bright, dense region of stars called the Cygnus Star Cloud (around 2,600 light-years away). About six degrees in diameter, the Northern Coalsack blocks the light of background stars. However, it's just the northern tip of the Great Rift, which stargazers also call The Dark River or Dark Cloud.

Beyond the Northern Coalsack, however, the Great Rift is something to travel to see more of. It stretches across about 120 degrees of the night sky from Cygnus and Sagittarius in the Northern Hemisphere to Centaurus in the Southern Hemisphere. The latter is home to the famous Southern Cross and, besides its star Acrux, the original Coalsack Nebula. Another reason to travel to see more of the Milky Way is to appreciate how Southern Hemisphere cultures view the Great Rift. While modern astronomers see it as a dark cloud that needs to be peered through, indigenous cultures see its shapes. The Wiradjuri in Australia see the silhouette of an emu (its head is the Coalsack Nebula) and use its position in the night sky as a seasonal calendar. Meanwhile, the Inca in South America saw a llama (and, beside it, a baby llama).

The Great Rift is one of my favorite things to see, because it reveals what we're doing when we see that arc of light stretch across a summer night sky — we're looking at a galaxy from the inside, with all of its depth and complexity.

How and when I'm watching it

You do need perfect darkness and excellent timing. With that in mind, I'm trying out a new app called Milky Way Tonight, which is built around a useful question: is tonight actually worth the effort? It checks when the Milky Way core is above the horizon, then weighs that against moon phase, moonrise and moonset times, the local cloud forecast and the Bortle rating for your location. That last part matters. A technically clear night in a bright suburb is still a bad Milky Way night. The app also has a dark-sky finder, which is the feature I suspect I will use most.

Although the Milky Way has to be enjoyed as a naked-eye sight, it's also worth bringing along some binoculars to let you sweep across the dense star fields right up to the edges of the Great Rift.

Stargazer's corner: July 31-August 7, 2026

This is a good week to plan a trip to see the Milky Way and the Great Rift, but not to actually take that trip. Since the moon was recently full, our galaxy will be badly washed out for much of the night. That will make it difficult to see much of the Southern Delta Aquariids peak around July 30-31, as well as the now-active Perseids building toward their August peak. Saturn is worth a pre-dawn look, and Venus remains bright low in the evening sky if the horizon is clear, but if you're an astrophotographer or you have a smart telescope, you can use light-pollution filters to take advantage of nebula season — with key deep-sky sights being the Lagoon and Trifid Nebula (M8 and M20), the Little Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24) and the Wild Duck star cluster (M11).

Asterism of the week: The Coathanger/Brocchi's Cluster

The Coathanger looks exactly like its name. Also known as Brocchi's Cluster, it's a pattern of 10 stars in the small constellation Vulpecula, with six forming a straight bar and four making a curved hook. First find the Summer Triangle — Vega, Altair and Deneb — then scan roughly halfway between Vega and Altair. The small constellation Sagitta, the Arrow, points nearby, with the Coathanger just to its north. Dark skies may reveal it to keen naked eyes, but binoculars are the best way because they show the whole shape at once. One last thing: it's not a real coathanger! Once thought to be a cluster of stars born together, the shape is now known to be a chance alignment of unrelated stars at different distances — yet another cosmic illusion.

Looking forward to the 2026 solar eclipse, happening on Aug. 12? I know I am and even though it's not a total solar eclipse here in the UK (the path of totality crosses Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain), we'll still get to watch the moon obscure around 90% of the Sun, a sight that terrified our ancient ancestors.

However, you'll need proper eye protection, such as solar eclipse glasses, to watch the eclipse safely. Sunglasses are not sufficient for a solar eclipse; instead, you need eclipse glasses that follow ISO 12312-2:2015, the standard for solar viewers. If that number's not somewhere on the glasses, you're at risk of damaging your eyesight, maybe even permanently.

So, read on as we round up the best solar eclipse glasses to buy in the UK. Want a slightly better view? Here are the best places in the UK to see the partial solar eclipse.

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

Venus dominates the evening sky throughout August, but early risers have a special treat too, as Mercury and Jupiter draw together in a beautiful dawn conjunction around mid-month.

From our vantage point on Earth, Venus reaches the end of its tether to the sun on the evening of Aug. 15, when it is at greatest elongation 46 degrees to the east of the sun. And yet, paradoxically, instead of appearing high up in the west, Venus is getting noticeably lower to the west-southwest horizon as the month progresses. This is because its declination in the sky is taking it well to the south of the sun. In fact, Venus's greatest elongation coincides with the time that it sets right at the end of evening twilight.

During the second half of August, into September, Venus will no longer be setting in a dark sky, but rather in a progressively brighter twilight sky. This is all due to its increasing southerly declination and the fact that the ecliptic — the apparent path of the sun, moon and planets through the zodiacal constellations — appears to slope closer to the western horizon at sunset during late summer and early fall.

The planet best positioned for telescopic observation this month is the "Lord of the Rings," Saturn, which comes up during late evening and is in a commanding position, well up in the south-southeast at the break of dawn.

Mars becomes evident a few hours before sunrise. During August, Earth approaches it at an average daily rate of 425,800 miles (685,100 kilometers). Still, even at month's end, Mars will be 172.2 million miles (277.1 million km) away, so while it continues to brighten, that process will still be quite slow.

Mercury and Jupiter are morning objects. Mercury will be evident during the first half of August, low in the east-northeast within about an hour of sunrise. It will be joined at midmonth by Jupiter as that big world emerges into view out of the glare of the rising sun.

In our schedule, remember that when measuring the angular separation between two celestial objects, your clenched fist held at arm's length measures roughly 10 degrees. Here, we present a schedule below which provides some of the best planet viewing times while directing you as to where to look to see them

Mercury

Mercury reaches greatest elongation from the Sun (19 degrees) on the morning of Aug. 2; it should be an obvious, +0.2-magnitude point low in the east-northeast if you look 50 minutes before sunrise. About a week later, look for Mercury very low in the east-northeast about an hour before sunrise. This small fleet world gets lower each dawn in early August, but it also rapidly brightens, from magnitude -0.7 on Aug. 9 to -1.3 (a trifle fainter than the brightest star, Sirius) by Aug. 16.

Also on Aug. 9, Castor and Pollux, the "Twin Stars" of Gemini, point directly toward Mercury. Just extend an imaginary line twice the distance between these two stars, down toward the east-northeast horizon and you'll come to Mercury. Early on the morning of Aug. 11, an exceedingly thin crescent moon — just 2% illuminated and about 32 hours from new (and a solar eclipse) — will lie about 2 degrees to the upper left of Mercury. From Aug. 13 through Aug. 17, Mercury will engage in a close interaction with Jupiter. Mercury arrives at superior conjunction with the sun on Aug. 27 and transitions into the evening sky.

Venus

Venus continues to outshine August's other evening stars and planets by a huge margin, brightening from magnitude -4.2 to -4.5 over the course of the month. It reaches its greatest elongation from the sun (46 degrees) on the evening of Aug. 15 and now resembles a roughly half-moon phase (48% illuminated) through a telescope. On the same evening, a three and a quarter day old crescent moon is poised to the lower right of Venus.

Mars

Mars rises around 2 a.m. local daylight time. When dawn breaks just over two hours later, it will stand 20 degrees above the east-northeast horizon. On the morning of Aug. 9, it can be found about 4.5 degrees to the right of a waning crescent moon.

Jupiter

Jupiter was in conjunction with the sun on July 29 and on Aug. 5, it is still too close to the sun to be visible without optical aid. But Jupiter appears two-thirds of a degree higher each morning and by Aug. 12, it should be visible about 5 degrees to Mercury's lower left shortly before sunrise, appearing dim in the bright twilight even though it shines at magnitude -1.8. Jupiter and Mercury shine less than 4 degrees from each other from Aug. 13 through Aug. 17.

Early on the morning of Aug. 15, the smallest and largest planets will meet in a close conjunction, with Jupiter shining about twice as bright as Mercury and separated by less than 0.6 degrees. However, seeing this tight pairing will be a challenge, as the duo lies just 12 degrees west of the sun and are up just 65 minutes before sunrise as seen from mid-northern latitudes. This majestic pair is about 10 degrees above the east-northeastern horizon at sunrise. You probably are going to need binoculars to fish them out against the brightening twilight sky. Still, it's worth the effort. After that, Jupiter moves rapidly off to Mercury's upper right, climbing into better morning view as its year-long apparition gets underway.

Saturn

Saturn rises a few hours after sunset, brightening in a lonely spot near the Cetus-Pisces border. In a telescope, its rings are tilted enough for good viewing; they narrow somewhat in the months ahead. Late on the evening of August 3rd, you'll find Saturn shining to the lower right of a gibbous moon.

If you're looking for a telescope or binoculars to observe the night sky, our guides for the best binocular deals and the best telescope deals are here to help. Interested in capturing the night sky? Check out our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope, The Old Farmer's Almanac and other publications.

The full Buck Moon rose to delight and dazzle stargazers with a spectacular display of moonlight on July 29 and we've got the photos to prove it!

July's moon is also known as the full "Buck Moon" — a traditional name used by Native American tribes to reflect the time of year when young deer grow out their antlers. Sadly, the name didn't herald any dramatic transformation in the appearance of the moon, but it still made for a spectacular sight — and photo opportunities — as it climbed above the eastern horizon at sunset on July 29.

Here's a selection of spectacular photos of the July Buck Moon 2026 captured alongside gorgeous natural landscapes, terrifying wildfires and stunning cityscapes from around the world.

Best photos of the July 2026 full Buck Moon

Our first photo of the full Buck Moon comes courtesy of Mesut Karaduman, who captured a gorgeously framed view of a ballerina performing in front of the yellow-orange lunar disk on a hillside close to the city of Tekirdağ in northwestern Türkiye on July 29.

Sadly, the rising of the full Buck Moon was not a tranquil occasion for some in Europe, where its color was stained a deep crimson by the smoke from wildfires, which continue to ravage vulnerable areas in the wake of a prolonged heatwave.

Photographer Sergen Sezgin captured one such scene firsthand, as the moon rose over a smouldering hillside close to the Turkish city of Balıkesir, a few hundred miles south of Tekirdağ.

Kevin McCarthy captured this photo of the full Buck Moon as it glowed in the skies over North Carolina, with the dark profiles of lunar seas and bright pockmarks of craters scarring the lunar surface.

"I stepped out onto my driveway in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 11:15 p.m. to capture tonight's full Buck Moon," McCarthy told Space.com in an email. "The moon has a definite warm tint likely caused by its low position in the sky, causing the light to pass through thicker layers of the atmosphere. "

That same moon appeared warped by atmospheric disturbances when it rose above the city of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on that same night, as a flock of birds flitted across its ancient surface in this photo from Tayfun Coskun.

Coskun captured another gorgeous scene of the moon rising over San Francisco on July 28, as the last of the day's sunlight kissed the tops of the surrounding hills, along with the tallest of the city's skyscrapers.

Mert Alper captured another image of moonrise being watched by a couple from Woodbine Beach in Toronto, Canada, as the lunar disk emerged from behind a dense cloud bank to brighten the evening sky.

Gary Hershorn, meanwhile, captured this magnificently timed view of the full Buck Moon as it shone at the pinnacle of Manhattan's One World Trade Center in New York on July 29 while looking over the Hudson River from New Jersey.

Our next atmospheric shot was taken with the aid of a telephoto lens by Ismail Kaplan during moonrise, as the lunar disk shimmered alongside Ankara Castle in the capital city of Türkiye.

This beautiful photo of the moon shining in the wheel of a young boy's bicycle was taken as the moon rose over the Zemplen Hills close to the Hunfarian town of Telkibánya that same night.

Finally, Izhar Khan was able to capture this impressive view of a bat's silhouette darkening the Sea of Tranquility and the Sea of Serenity as it flew through the night sky over Sydney, Australia.

The July 29 full moon is just the opening act for a spectacular month of skywatching events, kicking off with a jaw-dropping total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 that will be seen from Spain, Iceland and Greenland, which coincides with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

That's followed just two weeks later with a spectacular lunar eclipse that sees the moon fall deep into our planet's shadow, painting it a rusty-orange hue, weather permitting.

Be sure to check out our roundup of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography to ensure that you're ready to capture next month's action-packed calendar of skywatching events, along with our guide to the best solar viewing gear available in 2026.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

The best smart telescopes have transformed astrophotography over the past few years, combining small telescope optics and automated mounts with dashcam-style camera sensors and image-processing software. The result? Compact devices that can be controlled entirely from a smartphone. Impressively, the DwarfLab Dwarf Mini pushes that concept even further.

Roughly the size of a thick paperback book, it’s one of the smallest smart telescopes yet produced — tiny enough to fit in a jacket pocket while still capable of imaging nebulae, star clusters, the moon and even sunspots. It's also one of the best telescopes for beginners.

Positioned below the larger Dwarf 3 in DwarfLab’s lineup, the Mini sacrifices aperture and resolution for portability. It uses a 30mm refractor paired with Sony’s IMX662 sensor and relies on automated stacking to gradually reveal deep-sky objects. The telescope connects to a phone via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and handles alignment, tracking and imaging automatically through the DwarfLab app.

With built-in filters, optional equatorial tracking, and advanced software features such as Mega Stack and Stellar Studio processing, the Dwarf Mini is aimed at beginners and traveling astrophotographers who want a compact, automated imaging system that doesn’t require lots of extra kit — and works well even in light-polluted cities.

DwarfLab Dwarf Mini smart telescope review

DwarfLab Dwarf Mini: Design

• Ultra-compact 30mm refractor telescope
• Internal motorized filter wheel
• Magnetic solar filter
• Lightweight design
• Ideal for travel and eclipse chasing

The defining characteristic of the Dwarf Mini is its size. The body includes a 360-degree rotating base and an articulating lens arm that moves through 225 degrees, allowing the telescope to cover most of the sky. It's significantly smaller than its competitors, including the larger Dwarf 3, making it easy to pack for travel. In fact, it’s easily small enough to slip into a camera bag or carry-on luggage, making it an appealing option for traveling astrophotographers — perhaps including eclipse chasers preparing for the upcoming trio of total solar eclipses beginning in 2026, since a magnetic solar filter is included in the box. Nice touch!

The telescope itself is a 30mm f/5 refractor with a focal length of 150mm. This produces a field of view of about 2.4 degrees, roughly five times the apparent diameter of the full moon. That optical system is paired with a Sony IMX662 sensor, a 1/2.8-inch sensor capable of 2.1MP resolution (1080p). This sensor is all about low noise and sensitivity, making it well-suited to short astrophotography exposures, but not to high-resolution images. Compared with the Dwarf 3’s Sony IMX678 Starvis 2 sensor, which delivers 8.3MP and 4K resolution, the Mini is a step down in terms of detail. However, in practice, the difference is smaller than expected, particularly after image stacking and processing.

The device also features a motorized internal filter wheel, allowing users to switch between broadband and dual-narrowband filters directly in the app to mitigate light pollution and better image nebulae. This avoids the need to install external filters, which are an add-on accessory with some smart telescopes.

The box includes a magnetic solar filter, a USB-C charging cable and a lens cloth. However, a small tripod is not included in the box, which feels like an omission given the Mini’s travel-friendly design. That's not a deal-breaker since any small tabletop (or full-size) tripod can be used, but the all-in-one feel is sacrificed.

DwarfLab Dwarf Mini: Performance

• Reveals deep-sky objects even under light pollution
• Plate-solves stars and stacks short exposures
• Mega Stack combines data from multiple sessions

The Dwarf Mini performs surprisingly well considering its small optics. During testing, it proved capable of capturing bright deep-sky targets such as the Orion Nebula (M42) and the Pleiades (M45), as well as open clusters like M44, even from suburban skies.

Smart telescopes compensate for small apertures by stacking many short exposures over time, gradually building up a deeper image. In standard alt-az mode, exposures are typically limited to around 10-15 seconds to prevent field rotation (which can cause blur). This technique allows the telescope to perform well even under heavy light pollution and/or strong moonlight, making it particularly useful for urban astronomers, where the chance of seeing faint nebulae is virtually zero.

One particularly useful feature is Mega Stack, which combines multiple imaging sessions of the same targets. Instead of capturing everything in a single session, data from several shorter sessions can be added later — even months or years later — to produce deeper images. That's handy when windows of clear skies are few, or if you plan occasional trips to dark skies where better data might be possible.

For more advanced imaging, the telescope also supports an equatorial (EQ) tracking mode, something professional astrophotographers insist upon. EQ mode may not be essential on a travel-friendly smart telescope like this, but its inclusion is impressive. It requires the purchase of an equatorial wedge, such as Dwarf Mini’s Mini Tripod accessory, which we were not able to test during this review. After a simple alignment with Polaris, the mount tracks the sky’s rotation, allowing exposures of up to 90 seconds. It can make a marked difference with very faint targets — though it’s not an essential feature on a smart telescope aimed at beginners.

Daytime performance is also strong. With the included solar filter, the Mini easily captured sunspots and solar activity, while lunar images also showed impressive crater detail.

The main limitation is resolution. The 2MP sensor produces images that look excellent on smartphones and social media, but they lack the detail needed for large prints or serious astrophotography. But for a telescope this small, the results are genuinely impressive.

DwarfLab Dwarf Mini: Functionality

• Smartphone control via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth
• Sky Atlas feature for automatic target selection
• Manual pointing and mosaic imaging modes

The Dwarf Mini is designed to be controlled entirely through the DwarfLab smartphone app, which connects via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Once connected, users can browse a built-in sky atlas, which displays objects currently visible from their location. Selecting an object prompts the telescope to plate-solve the surrounding stars, automatically align itself, slew to the target and begin stacking exposures. Imaging sessions can be stopped at any point if you’re happy with the result so far. The app also displays session details such as exposure count and total integration time.

For users who want more control, the telescope can also be manually aimed at any patch of sky, which is particularly useful when imaging newly discovered comets or objects not yet included in the atlas database. For objects larger than its field of view, such as the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), Mini has a mosaic mode, which allows the telescope to capture multiple adjacent frames and stitch them together.

Captured images can then be processed using Stellar Studio, DwarfLab’s built-in image processing software, which is very good at removing noise and adding contrast. Images can be saved in JPG, TIFF or FITS formats, giving beginners a set of sharing-friendly options and more advanced users the chance to download files into desktop processing software.

It’s all remarkably easy to operate once you’re comfortable with how the app works. Beginners can capture solar, lunar and deep-sky images within minutes of set-up, while more experienced astrophotographers can still access advanced features such as EQ tracking and mosaic imaging.

Firmware updates are frequent and install easily through the app, so it’s worth connecting the telescope to your home Wi-Fi before heading to a dark-sky site — you never know when new features will appear!

Should you buy the DwarfLab Dwarf Mini smart telescope?

The DwarfLab Dwarf Mini offers a tempting combination of portability, automation and surprisingly capable astrophotography performance. It won’t replace a full astrophotography setup, but for beginners, urban astronomers, travelers and eclipse chasers, it provides an easy way to capture the night sky — and the sun — without bulky and expensive equipment.

If the DwarfLab Dwarf Mini smart telescope isn't for you

If you're after something with a little higher resolution, the DwarfLab Dwarf 3 is a larger, more powerful version with a 4K sensor and a slightly larger aperture.

ZWO Seestar S30 is a similar smart telescope with automated tracking and an included tabletop tripod, though it's recently been surpassed by the slightly pricier ZWO Seestar S30 Pro, a higher-resolution alternative that boasts superior optics and imaging.

For an overview of the top telescopes in this category, read our 2026 guide to the best smart telescopes.

User reviews

Online reviews of the Dwarf Mini often highlight its portability, simplicity and image quality. One reviewer described it as a “great piece of kit for deep space astrophotography.”

Another wrote: “I had no trouble getting it imaging within a few minutes out of the box,” praising the image quality, autofocus, GoTo accuracy, tracking, and the app. “It's a brilliant piece of kit,” said another user.

However, several users also reported poor quality in planetary images — and that’s certainly true (though it can find the moons of Jupiter).

How we tested the DwarfLab Dwarf Mini smart telescope

Our observations took place on a few clear nights during February and March 2026, in temperatures down to lows of 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) and highs of about 54 F (12 C). Light pollution was between 5 and 6 on the Bortle scale — urban conditions with bright city lighting. Battery life averaged around 4 hours, though longer imaging sessions were supported using an external USB power bank connected to the telescope's USB-C slot.

Editor's Note: The full "Buck Moon" charged into the summer sky on July 29 to to dazzle stargazers with a gorgeous display of natural moonlight and we have the photos to prove it! Check out our wrap article to see jaw dropping photos of the July 2026 full moon captured from around the world.

The July full "Buck Moon" rises tonight to lead Saturn, Mars and Mercury in a spectacular mini planetary parade through the summer sky. Here's what you need to know.

July's full moon phase occurs at 10:36 a.m. EDT on July 29 (1436 GMT), when the lunar disk will appear fully illuminated. It's often called the Buck Moon, to reflect the time when young male deer grow out their antlers. It has also been named the Berry Moon by the indigenous Anishinaabe people and as the Thunder Moon by the Western Abenaki people, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

Look to the southeastern horizon at sunset to catch the full Buck Moon as it creeps slowly into the summer sky. The moon may appear particularly large at moonrise thanks to a phenomenon known as the "Moon Illusion", where our brains trick us into perceiving it as larger than it actually is while close to the horizon. You might also see it adopt a yellow-orange hue as Earth's atmosphere scatters the bluer wavelengths of its light as it travels low in the sky.

Sunlight strikes the moon head on during July's full moon phase, leaving no shadows to emphasize the presence of the countless craters that litter the lunar surface. It's a perfect time to explore the dark lunar seas that scar the moon's surface, where ancient lava flows once flooded networks of impact basins, then hardened billions of years ago, repaving vast swathes of Earth's natural satellite.

Grab a pair of binoculars or a telescope and look a little closer. You'll find a network of bright streaks intersecting as they travel outward from youthful impact craters. These features are known as ejecta rays, and were created when material cast out in violent impacts fell back onto the lunar surface. Every crater on the moon once had its own set of ejecta rays. However, all but the most recent have since faded into obscurity due to space weathering.

Venus will appear as a bright evening star to the west after sunset, serving as the opening act for a magnificent planetary procession in the hours that follow. Saturn, Mars and Mercury will rise in the east to trail the moon in a majestic arc as it treads a ponderous path from east to west through the summer sky.

Want to capture the incredible predawn lineup for yourself? Then be sure to check out our guide to photographing the planets, along with our expert tips on photographing the moon. You can also read our roundup of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography to ensure that you're ready for the next big skywatching event.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Correction 7/29: Look to the southeastern horizon at sunset to catch the full Buck Moon, not the southwestern horizon.

An astrophotographer captured a breathtaking scene as the International Space Station zoomed by Venus in the daytime sky.

What is it?

Photographer AJ Smadi set up the scene on July 18 in a park near Seattle, Washington. Smadi used a 9.25" (23.5 cm) Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope and a ZWO ASI662MC camera equipped with an ultraviolet and infrared filter to capture the incredible image.

But this isn't the first time Smadi has pulled off such a feat. Just over a year ago, the photographer captured the ISS beside Venus in a photo that was selected by NASA as one of its Astronomy Photos of the Day.

"The thing that inspired me to capture Venus with the ISS is the fact that nobody has done it before," Smadi told Space.com by email. "After having realized this in April 2025 following my first time capturing the pair together, I was determined to best my own achievement," Smadi said.

Smadi regularly photographs the ISS but says the clarity differs greatly depending on the stability of the air and its distance.

Why is it incredible?

Capturing Venus, the ISS, or any other object in space (other than the moon) during the daylight hours takes careful planning and a deep understanding of astrophotography techniques and filters.

The ISS travels at a mind-boggling 4.6 miles per second (7.5 km per second) and is 84 million miles (135 million kilometers) away from Venus, so lining up a photograph of the two seemingly side-by-side is no easy feat and takes painstaking planning.

For more of AJ Smadi's work, including photos of the ISS transiting the sun, the moon, and passing by Saturn, visit his Instagram.

Smart telescopes like the Seestar S30 Pro have changed astrophotography and, arguably, urban astronomy. The Seestar S30 Pro takes that concept further than most. Small enough to fit inside a camera backpack, it combines a refractor telescope, motorized mount, dual cameras and image-processing software into a compact unit controlled entirely from a smartphone. Within minutes of powering on, it can align itself to the night sky, slew to a specified target and begin stacking exposures to reveal galaxies, nebulas and star clusters — even from light-polluted locations.

It makes astrophotography — once a complex and expensive hobby — possible with a single, automated device, though what makes the Seestar S30 Pro particularly interesting is not just its simplicity, but how it changes the experience of observing. Instead of actively operating a telescope, users watch a digital image build in real time. Sure, your eyes don’t see the photons coming from distant galaxies, but that misses the point — urban astronomers can’t see much of those galaxies anyway when using an optical telescope.

Positioned as an upgrade to the original Seestar S30, it introduces higher-resolution 8.3MP imaging, equatorial tracking support and expanded imaging modes aimed at more advanced users.

Designed for beginners, urban astronomers and astrophotographers of any level who are looking for a portable rig, the Seestar S30 Pro is about convenience, capability and a different way to explore the night sky.

ZWO Seestar S30 Pro smart telescope review

ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: Design

• Lightweight design
• Dual-camera system
• Full smartphone control

At first glance, the Seestar S30 Pro barely resembles a telescope, being closer in size to a telephoto lens than a traditional optical instrument. That portability is one of its defining strengths — this is a telescope you can realistically take anywhere, whether into a backyard, onto a balcony or on a dark-sky trip. You could even take it as hand luggage on a trip to see a total solar eclipse in a distant land.

The design is deliberately minimal. Aside from a power button and USB-C slot, there are no physical controls. Everything — from slewing and focusing to image capture and processing — is handled through the Seestar app. Once connected to a phone via its own WiFi network, the system operates entirely offline, connecting directly to your phone without requiring an internet connection in the field.

A key feature of this new, improved model is its dual-camera system. The primary telephoto camera is dedicated to deep-sky imaging, using a Sony IMX585 sensor that’s capable of 8.3MP (4K) images, while the secondary wide-angle uses an equally capable Sony IMX586 sensor for sky alignment and wide-field imaging modes.

The included tabletop tripod is solid, if small, so users with backyards surrounded by buildings or trees will benefit from mounting the device on a full-size photographic tripod. It also comes with a handy, high-quality padded shoulder bag to store the telescope and all its accessories.

ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: Performance

• Automatic stacking with intelligent frame rejection
• EQ mode enables longer exposures
• Strong results under urban/suburban skies

Using the Seestar S30 Pro is less about operating equipment and more about using an app. After powering on and connecting via WiFi, the telescope automatically plate-solves the stars overhead, determines its position and slews to a selected target. Within minutes, it begins capturing short exposures — typically around 10 seconds — which are stacked in real time to reduce noise and improve detail. Crucially, the system automatically discards poor-quality frames caused by tracking errors, wind shake or star trailing.

The effect of the image stacking is gradual. As more data is collected, a faint patch of light slowly resolves into a nebula or distant galaxy. The longer the telescope runs, the clearer and more detailed the final image becomes, with nebulosity and spiral arms becoming visible. Stars remain sharp across the field of view — the Seestar S30 Pro’s optics may be small, but they are excellent quality. During our test, we produced some superb images of the Orion Nebula (M42), as well as Bode’s Galaxy (M81) and the Cigar Galaxy (M82), the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13).

Stacking images is a hugely effective way to do observational astronomy under light-polluted urban skies. By stacking multiple exposures and applying built-in filters (there are three), the Seestar S30 Pro can reveal objects that would otherwise be invisible through the eyepiece of a traditional optical telescope.

The all-new equatorial (EQ) mode extends performance further, though aligning the telescope with Earth’s rotation requires purchasing the add-on Seestar TH10 Fluid Tripod Head. This is easy to set up, thanks to an in-app setup process that perfectly positions the tripod and ball head. With Expert Mode engaged, exposures of up to 60 seconds are possible. We tried it on two faint targets — the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13) — and got much greater detail.

Planetary imaging is less impressive, with planets appearing small and lacking fine detail. That said, we did manage to image Jupiter and its moons. The telescope is clearly optimized for deep-sky imaging rather than solar system work — the exception being the moon, which looked fabulous through the Seestar S30 Pro.

ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: Functionality

• Intuitive smartphone app
• Automated imaging and Plan mode
• Built-in processing and FITS export

The Seestar app is central to the entire experience. It acts as both controller and processing platform, offering a planetarium-style sky atlas that displays objects visible from the user’s location. Selecting a target triggers automatic alignment, slewing and image capture. Once imaging begins, the app displays real-time progress, including exposure count and total integration time. Users can stop a session at any time or continue it for deeper results. The telescope can operate largely unattended, making it easy to leave running and check later.

If all of this is beginning to sound like the Seestar S30 Pro is ideal for lazy astronomers, it doesn’t end there. Cue the app’s Plan mode, which allows users to schedule multiple targets for imaging overnight. Orion Nebula not rising until 3 a.m.? No problem. Pre-sunrise comet? Stay in bed. Assuming you’ve checked for clear skies beforehand, the Seestar S30 Pro can observe while you sleep. However, Plan mode does come with limits: exposure time and gain cannot be fine-tuned per target, so users must rely on default settings. For most, that won’t deter.

For those interested in post-processing, the Seestar S30 Pro supports FITS file export, enabling images to be refined in external software such as Siril, PixInsight, DeepSkyStacker or Photoshop (though advanced users dealing in FITS files may find that the system’s 128GB internal storage needs frequent attention). Alternatively, the built-in Deep Sky Stack provides quick results with minimal effort, allowing frames to be discarded and the effective AI Denoise pipeline to be engaged — something that takes a little patience, but delivers excellent results.

How we tested the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro

Testing took place over multiple nights during late winter and early spring, under suburban Bortle 6 skies in cold but not freezing temperatures. It was also used in Bortle 2 skies in sub-zero temperatures, with no ill effects on the 6-hour battery life. The telescope was used to image a variety of deep-sky objects, with sessions ranging from short captures to integrations lasting several hours. Both standard alt-az mode and EQ mode were tested.

Should you buy the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro?

The Seestar S30 Pro is best understood not as a traditional telescope, but as an automated imaging system designed to make astrophotography accessible. It’s also an upgrade on the Seestar S30 that may or may not be worth the money, depending on your needs.

For beginners, it provides a clear pathway into astrophotography without the usual financial or technical barriers. For more advanced users, it’s an efficient grab-and-go system for casual or supplementary imaging.

If the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro isn't for you

If you’re looking for a more affordable entry point, the ZWO Seestar S30 offers similar ease of use, but with lower (2MP) resolution and fewer advanced features. For those who simply want basic, shareable images, it remains a strong alternative.

The DwarfLab Dwarf Mini is even smaller and more portable but it is limited to 2MP imaging. At the other end of the market, the Unistellar Odyssey is a premium smart telescope offering much larger apertures and access to citizen science campaigns, albeit at significantly higher prices.

For an overview of the top telescopes in this category, read our guide to the best smart telescopes.

There is a particular moment every July when the night sky makes perfect sense to me. Every time I step outside at night, I instinctively look overhead for the Summer Triangle. Not because it's the most spectacular sight in the sky. In fact, the vast asterism is almost suspiciously simple: three bright stars, large enough to cut through twilight and light pollution without much effort.

Experienced stargazers quietly depend on the Summer Triangle more than we admit. People imagine astronomy involves memorizing the entire sky at once, knowing exactly where each star is and what it's called. Everyone navigates differently, but we all rely on familiar anchor points because the night sky changes quickly with the seasons.

The Summer Triangle is one of the best anchors because it appears exactly when the northern sky can otherwise feel vague and washed out during late twilight. Once those three stars appear, I immediately know where everything else is. The Milky Way becomes easier to trace. The darker regions of the sky reveal themselves. Constellations stop looking random. Suddenly, I know where the Perseids will emerge from later in the night and where to point binoculars to find summer's dense star fields without even thinking about it.

The Summer Triangle also teaches you how to see the night sky. To the untrained eye, the night sky appears as a flat backdrop of stars — hence the "blanket of stars" saying. Every time I hear that cliche, I wince. There is no blanket! The night sky has incredible depth, and there's nowhere better to learn how to appreciate that than when gazing at the Summer Triangle.

Take Altair, the lowest star. It's relatively nearby at about 17 light-years away. It shines brightly largely because it is close to us. Vega lies slightly farther away at roughly 25 light-years, but it is intrinsically far more luminous. It once served as Earth's North Star thousands of years ago and, thanks to our planet's slow axial wobble, will become the North Star again many millennia from now. So far, so local — we're in the sun's backyard with these two stars. The light from both of them began its journey to us this century.

Then there's Deneb. Deneb is so distant — roughly 2,600 light-years away — that the fact it appears this bright at all becomes genuinely difficult to process. Its light began traveling toward Earth while the Roman Empire was still in existence. The only reason it remains prominent in our sky is that Deneb is an enormously luminous supergiant radiating tens of thousands of times more energy than the sun.

Knowing this about Deneb transforms the Summer Triangle into a three-dimensional shape. Here are three stars that appear neatly connected overhead, but in reality, one is separated by an incomprehensible distance. So next time you look at the Summer Triangle, keep Altair and Vega at the front and push Deneb way, way back. It's not a triangle anymore — it's an arrow pointing far into the distance, thousands of light-years away into the starfields of the distant Milky Way.

What's happening and when to look

This week is the perfect time to reacquaint yourself with the Summer Triangle using just your naked eyes. Around 11 p.m. local time at mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, look high in the southeast. Vega is usually the first to appear, high and brilliant with a slightly blue-white color. To its lower left sits Deneb. Farther south is Altair. By midnight, the entire Summer Triangle stands high overhead and remains one of the defining features of the northern summer sky through October.

Stretching directly through it is our view into the Orion Arm of the Milky Way — the spiral arm of the galaxy containing the solar system itself — while farther south, the glowing river of starlight continues toward the galactic core near the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, low on the horizon. Under dark skies, the Milky Way visibly streams behind Deneb and through Altair like a river of stars.

How and when I'm watching it

Once I start slowly sweeping binoculars through the Summer Triangle, I usually lose all sense of structure and planning. Dense star clouds spill into view everywhere. Dark lanes slice through the Milky Way. Tiny clusters appear almost accidentally. The region between Deneb and Altair may be my favorite casual binocular territory in the entire sky.

Inside the Summer Triangle itself lies the Cygnus Star Cloud, one of the richest naked-eye sections of the Milky Way visible from northern latitudes. Nearby are the Ring Nebula and the Dumbbell Nebula. The beautiful double star Albireo — one bright yellow and the other a fainter blue — sits at the beak of Cygnus, the Swan.

I'll also look for a couple of smaller constellations within and around the Summer Triangle — Delphinus, the Dolphin, hovers to the left of Altair, while tiny Sagitta, the Arrow, hangs above Altair, looking improbably compact.

That's another thing the Summer Triangle taught me — astronomy improves dramatically once you stop hunting objects individually and start exploring regions instead. It's armchair travel of the grandest kind.

If you're looking for a telescope or binoculars to observe the night sky, our guides for the best binocular deals and the best telescope deals can help. Our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography can help you get ready to capture the next stunning skywatching event.

Stargazer's corner: July 24-31, 2026

The moon will move beneath the Summer Triangle this week, appearing as an 81%-illuminated waxing gibbous moon as it shines close to supergiant star Antares in the constellation Scorpius, on Friday, July 24. By now, the moon is dominating the night sky, albeit low on the horizon, and on Wednesday, July 29 — the night before the full Buck Moon — the Summer Triangle will appear to point straight at it. Late July also marks the gradual strengthening of the Perseid meteor shower, with occasional early meteors now appearing after midnight. The Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids peak around Thursday-Friday, July 30-31, though the full moon will reduce visibility of fainter meteors considerably.

Constellation of the week: Sagitta

Sagitta, the Arrow, is one of the smallest constellations, but also one of the easiest to recognize once you've found it. It appears as a short line of five stars — all between 450-650 light-years distant — with an arrowhead, shaft and two stars as the fletchings. It's between Cygnus and Aquila.

It's not bright, but it's well-defined, and once you spot it, it becomes a reliable reference point. Learning these smaller constellations helps fill in the gaps between the more obvious patterns.

In a rare first for me, I actually used autofocus for this entire astrophotography shoot. If I'm being honest? I prefer it when shooting astro with a mirrorless camera. Why? Because it is quicker and that means more time capturing the stars and less time setting up. I can get a star in sharp focus using autofocus in half the time that it would take me to do it manually and it's way easier to focus with the shutter or back button than play about with the focus ring, especially with cold fingers.

I only managed to get out under one clear sky to test the new R6 III but it was a wonderful session at my usual dark hill spot surrounded by a sea of stars and celestial shapes. After setting up my tripod, I was ready to start shooting, armed with the Canon 14mm f/1.4 and 45mm f/1.2 lenses.

If you are a seasoned astrophotographer, you will undoubtedly have started your craft by learning how to manually focus on stars to get them crisp and sharp in the frame. Everyone does. Whilst the manual focus (MF) versus autofocus (AF) debate continues within the community, the technology for low-light autofocusing capability has come a long way since mirrorless cameras were first introduced and the R6 III is physical proof of that.

The astrophotography

You only get the luxury of being able to do this if your camera is actually good at autofocusing in low light and for starry nightscapes. All three versions of the Canon EOS R6 feature a low-light autofocus range of -6.5 exposure value (EV), so they already have a strong baseline for shooting under dark skies. The Canon EOS R6 III features a higher resolution and advanced autofocus algorithms, so the AF system actually has more data to use and is better at using it.

I was able to capture bright objects easily and start shooting without having to spend ages using manual focus for each new shot. The autofocus was powerful enough to capture at least one star in each of my frames. I simply used autofocus on the brighter points of light in my composition, waited for the green box and then switched to manual to avoid any refocusing if I decided to recompose the shot.

Bright objects were the easiest to capture, with Jupiter, Pollux and Castor easily captured in the western sky. Light pollution washed out the contrast in this shot but it was the quickest autofocus because of the brightness of the objects.

The autofocus helped me capture a range of other constellations too. With the R6 III focusing on the bright star Arcturus, along with the rest of Boötes and Coma Berenices next to the Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111).

The shape of Leo is recognisable and the autofocus captured the brightest star, Regulus, to bring the rest of the stars in the constellation into focus. You can even spot the Beehive Cluster (M44) in Cancer, to the right of the frame and it is fairly sharp in focus. Barring some minor star trailing from my lack of a star tracker, the stars are nicely in focus, including on minor objects like star clusters.

Using the 45mm lens, I got some close-ups of some quadrilateral shapes in the sky. Hercules' prominent trapezoidal keystone is visible and one of the corners, Zeta Herculis, was picked up by the autofocus. It is not exactly a bright star, with a magnitude of 2.88, but the R6 III picked it up easily and brought the rest of the corners into focus. Whilst barely a smudge along one of the sides of Hercules, I even managed to capture the Hercules globular cluster (M13) with the R6 III and the Canon RF 45mm wide open at f/1.2.

The polygonal head of the dragon in Draco was easily captured in the centre of the frame, with bright stars Eltanin (2.23), Rastaban (2.79) and even Iota Herculis (3.8) showing prominently. The autofocus capabilities of the EOS R6 III are maximised when used alongside a lens with a very fast aperture like f/1.4 and f/1.2. Without these types of lenses, you would be much less likely to be able to autofocus on such dim stars.

The upgrades

The big question when looking at the third iteration of a camera model is to figure out if the upgrades are actually worth it. First, you have to think about your budget and also what you are using the camera for. For astrophotography, there are a few upgrades in the EOS R6 III that can be considered to see whether they are worth it.

The most noticeable upgrade on the R6 III is the resolution, which has been upgraded from the R6 II's 24.2MP sensor to a 32.5 MP sensor. On top of improved resolution for general and astrophotography, the boosted number of pixels allows the Dual Pixel CMOS AF II to collect even more data points because there are more pixels. Dual Pixel architecture splits each pixel into two separate photodiodes and allows each photodiode to read the light from the star at two different positions and allows the lens motor to bring those points together into perfect focus.

The upgraded sensor resolution combined with upgraded tracking algorithms from the flagship Canon EOS R5 II make the R6 III better at locking onto low-light points and make autofocus for astrophotography much more reliable than in previous models.

I initially expected the higher resolution to translate into more image noise on photographs but this was not the case. The R6 III utilizes dual-gate gain architecture, which means that every pixel has a switchable path at the hardware level depending on the ISO level used and allows images with higher ISOs to have a heavily reduced base amount of noise and thus makes them less grainy.

Photos at lower ISOs on the R6 III have an incredibly high dynamic range (HDR) thanks to the low conversion gate (LCG) circuit. This allows the natural color of the stars to be preserved instead of coming across as indeterminate white blobs, as well as the subtle hues of the dark surrounding sky in the photograph.

Aside from the technical aspects of how the resolution improves the autofocus, the detail in images from the R6 III is noticeable and is great for picking up finer stellar structures such as star clusters and smaller stars. When paired with a distorted lens like the Canon RF 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5 fisheye lens, extra resolution really helps details pop. I didn't get to use the fisheye lens for astro but general daytime shooting delivered some high-quality photographs.

The final important upgrade on the R6 III is the inclusion of a CFexpress card slot, which allows faster writing and reading speeds both in camera and during media downloads. A UHS-II SD card has an average read speed of 300MB/s and an average write speed of 260MB/s.

This may seem fast but the most advanced CFexpress cards have a read and write speed of over 3000MB/s, which makes huge workloads so much easier to process. This may only be of benefit to professional photographers who shoot a lot of video or need to do a huge amount of burst photography in RAW format, but it does vastly improve the performance of this camera. Bear in mind that CFexpress cards are much more expensive than SD cards and require an additional CFexpress reader to transfer data to a computer.

Is it worth it?

The price difference between the R6 Mark II and the Mark III is just under $1000 and for that amount of money, justifying the move up to the latest model comes down to a few factors that you will have to consider. The power of the low-light autofocus is tempting but you should think about the camera as a whole to see whether it is worth making the investment.

If you are looking to boost resolution in your night-time scenes and have been shooting astrophotography for a long time, the R6 III could be worth the extra investment thanks to the 32.5MP sensor, which retains the powerful dual-gain architecture for getting high dynamic range images at lower ISOs and delivering high ISO images with significantly less grain.

If you have a heavy workflow, you are likely to be frustrated with the lack of a CFexpress card slot on the earlier R6 models and would benefit from the advanced functionality the new slot will give you, especially if you shoot a lot of RAW imagery and video.

Stick with an earlier model or a different mirrorless camera if you are a very casual astrophotographer who does most of your shooting in the daytime. I just can't justify the massive jump in price for basic shooting, where a beginner or intermediate photographer's money might be better spent on getting a fast f/1.4 lens for superior astro. I used the Canon RF 14mm f/1.4 lens for astrophotography testing and I don't think the images would have looked half as good if I had used a lens with a smaller aperture. If you already own the R6 II, the only reason you might upgrade is if you need to do more heavy cropping into your images or need better hybrid video functionality from a camera.

Picture it: A slash of vivid green light splits the starry sky. There for a moment and then gone, leaving nothing but a short-lived glowing trail and a moment of pure joy. You've finally caught it, your first Perseid shooting star of the season.

What you saw was the final moment of a story billions of miles and thousands of years in the making. A story that began with that same shooting star locked inside the icy body of the wandering comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.

The 16-mile-wide (26 kilometer) giant of a comet spends its life journeying back and forth between the outer and inner solar system, where its frigid body is heated by the sun, triggering dramatic outbursts of activity. While in close proximity to our star, ice near to the surface of the comet is transformed into gas, skipping the water stage entirely as it escapes out into the vastness of interplanetary space.

Embedded within that ice was once a micrometeoroid no larger than a grain of sand, destined to become the Perseid shooting star you saw.

The violence of the newborn micrometeoroid's exile was followed by an epoch of utter silence, as its orbit was subtly influenced by the unseen forces of the solar system. It would be easy to think of this as a lonely existence, but we'd be wrong.

Our cosmic pebble was joined by millions of others, all shed in the wake of Swift-Tuttle. A great stream of primordial material that threads through the inner solar system, crossing the path of Earth before extending in a great swarm that messily traces the elliptical orbit of their comet progenitor, below the plane of the solar system. Beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Each follows its own unique path. Trajectories are shaped by the force of a micrometeoroid's expulsion from the comet's nucleus, along with the gentle push of radiation from the sun and the gravitational tug of the planets.

It's impossible to know how long our shooting star drifted through the cold expanse of interplanetary space. Was it hundreds or many thousands of years? How many times might it have journeyed around the sun before its fateful rendezvous with our Blue Marble?

We can never know. What we do know is how its journey ended.

Civilizations could have risen to their zenith and crumbled in the time our micrometeoroid spent traversing the unfeeling expanse of interplanetary space, but its demise lasted but a fraction of a second. It collided with our planet's gaseous shell at 132,000 miles per hour (212,433 kmph), cutting a brilliant green trail through the summer sky as atmospheric friction vaporized the cometary shard.

It's that fiery demise that you spotted tonight — an experience that will repeat hundreds of times each and every hour at the height of the Perseid meteor shower, as Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream cast off by comet Swift-Tuttle.

The Perseid meteor shower is active from now until Aug. 24, with the best viewing window occurring in the early hours of Aug. 13, as the shower's radiant rises to its highest point on the night of the shower's peak.

This year's peak will be particularly spectacular, unfolding as it does in the pristinely dark skies surrounding the Aug. 12 new moon, which will also cause a spectacular total solar eclipse to be visible across parts of Spain, Iceland and Greenland. If you find yourself in the path of totality and have luck on your side, then you might just spot a Perseid fireball brightening the false twilight that falls as the moon hides the face of the sun at the crescendo of the eclipse!

Want to capture a shooting star that will stay with you forever? Then be sure to read our guide to photographing fast-moving meteors, along with our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography if you're looking to upgrade your gear.

Editor's Note: Did you catch a photo of a Perseid shooting star and want to share it with Space.com's readers? Then please go ahead and send your photos along with your comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

The Perseids may be the summer meteor shower everyone marks on the calendar, but they are not the only reason to look up this season.

From mid-July through late August, Earth plows through several other streams of comet and asteroid debris, triggering a series of lesser-known meteor showers across Northern Hemisphere skies.

Most will not deliver the dazzling hourly rates of the Perseids, and moonlight will spoil some peak nights in 2026. But for patient skywatchers under dark skies, these lesser-known showers can still serve up bright fireballs, faint streaks and a preview of the main event to come.

The duration in days of a shower we provide here is somewhat arbitrary, since the beginning and ending are gradual and indefinite. While the hourly rates from these other meteor streams provide but a fraction of the numbers produced by the Perseids, combined, overall, they provide a wide variety of meteors of differing colors, speeds and trajectories.

Capricornids

First to appear are the Capricornids, starting around July 10, with their maximum on July 25 and end on Aug. 15. Under the best conditions only a few bright meteors per hour come from this stream, so you'll hardly know it is in progress unless you plot meteor trails on a star map and trace them back to their common intersection point; most of the meteors you'll see will be sporadics or members of another shower.

The radiant reaches its highest point at about 30 degrees high in the south, about 2:00 a.m. local daylight time. The waxing gibbous moon will have set at around 1:40 a.m. on the night of the peak, leaving the rest of the night dark for prospective meteor watchers.

Delta Aquarids

Next come the Delta Aquarids, July's most prolific shower, with maximum on July 29, and as many as two or three dozen meteors per hour under ideal conditions. The shower lasts from July 12 to Aug. 23. It has a double radiant, indicating that we are seeing two distinct streams of celestial debris burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.

The meteors are mostly faint; a few bright, 5-10% leave persistent trains; they move at medium-slow speeds because they are coming in sideways across Earth's orbit. On peak night this year, the double radiant will be highest — roughly 40 degrees above the southern horizon — at 3:30 a.m. Unfortunately, in 2026, peak activity will coincide with full moon, so most of these streaks will likely be squelched by bright moonlight.

Piscis Australids

Another weak shower is the Piscis Australids, on July 30, with normal limits July 10 to Aug. 10. This is a lesser stream; only about eight members per hour are seen under best conditions to observers in the Southern Hemisphere, where the radiant — near the bright star Fomalhaut — climbs high in the sky.

As is the case with the Delta Aquarids, the moon, only one day past full, unfortunately, wrecks any chances of getting any decent views this year.

Alpha Capricornids

The final shower peaking in July is the Alpha Capricornids, which begin about July 7, peak on July 31, and end on Aug. 15. The radiant reaches its highest point, about 30 degrees high in the south at about 1:00 a.m. local daylight time. Though sparse (5 per hour) in number, the Alpha Capricornids are photogenic, frequently producing bright yellow fireballs that can be quite spectacular. Sadly, the bright moon, 93% illuminated, is in eastern Capricornus and will seriously impact the peak of this year's display.

Iota Aquarids

The last minor shower before the Perseids is the Iota Aquarids, a two-radiant shower having detectable members from July 15 to Aug. 25. At peak activity on Aug. 6, only about six members per hour are seen under good conditions; the radiants are at their highest point, about 40 degrees in the south at 2:30 a.m. A last quarter moon will be about one-third up in the eastern sky at that hour, which will interfere to an extent with viewing these meteors.

Perseids

The Perseids are predicted to reach their peak in 2026 on the morning of Aug. 13. Meteors whose paths extended backward intersect at a spot near the Perseid-Cassiopeia border not far from the famous Double Cluster in Perseus.

It rises at dusk and is highest in the sky — nearly overhead — at 5:40 a.m. When maximum occurs in a dark sky, as will be the case this year, this rich stream offers a crescendo in hourly rates averaging more than 50 members per hour, though double this rate has been seen on occasion. Many flaring meteors with trains are seen. This shower normally extends from July 17 through Aug. 24.

Kappa Cygnids

The last summer shower is the Kappa Cygnids. The limits of this shower run from Aug. 3 to Aug. 25, with the peak on Aug. 17. Though the maximum rate is only about four per hour, the stream does provide slow-moving flaring fireballs, and a careful observer may be nicely rewarded for the time spent.

The radiant is just north of the star Kappa Cygni and is nearly overhead — some 80 degrees high — at around 10:00 p.m. local time. At about that same time, a waxing crescent moon is low in the southwest and is about to set and will offer little viewing interference.

Where to look

The radiant is the place in the sky where the paths of shower members, if extended backward, would intersect when plotted on a star chart. Many people are misled into thinking that this is the best place to look for these meteors, but only stationary meteors — ones coming nearly straight at you — can be seen here.

The greatest numbers will be seen perhaps 30 degrees away from the radiant, in the general direction of the zenith. Remember that your clenched fist held at arm's length is roughly equal to 10 degrees.

In addition to shower meteors, there are always sporadic ones, apparently unrelated to one another, that occur at an average rate of about 7 per hour. The duration in days of a particular shower is somewhat arbitrary, since the beginning and ending are gradual and indefinite.

Skywatching tips

The only equipment you'll need is your eyes and a modest amount of patience.

The number of meteors an observer can see in an hour depends strongly on sky conditions. The rates quoted here are based on a limiting star magnitude of +6.5 (an exceptionally good, dark sky), an experienced observer, and the assumption that the radiant is directly overhead.

The lower the radiant in the sky, the fewer the numbers that will be seen. At an altitude of about 30 degrees, the hourly rate is halved, at 15 degrees it is one-third. No two observers prepare for a meteor vigil the same way.

Expect the overnight low temperature to be well below what the weather forecast suggests. When you sit quite still, close to the rapidly cooling ground, and if the air is even just slightly damp, you can become very chilled. It helps to take a late afternoon nap, followed by a shower, and to wear fresh clothing. Heavy blankets, sleeping bags, a ground cloth, an auto cushion, and a pillow are all necessary equipment. Some food and non-alcoholic beverages will help keep you comfortable.

Don't forget the moon

Another factor is the phase of the moon, which this year will be full on July 29 and new on Aug. 12. This makes it a very favorable year for viewing the Perseids, but not so favorable for those displays peaking at the end of July into early August. However, most are also active for a good number of days before and after maximum activity, so you can also watch for them when moonlight is not a hindrance.

Are these meteor showers worth watching?

In short, minor summer meteor showers are worth watching if you enjoy patient, low-key skywatching, but they are not ideal if you expect a dramatic display.

They offer a long observing season, require no equipment, and can produce a variety of meteors with different colors, speeds, paths, and occasionally bright fireballs. They also give observers more chances to watch when skies are clear and moonlight is less intrusive.

However, most are weak when compared to the Perseids, with low hourly rates and many faint meteors. Moonlight, low radiant positions, overlapping showers, and sporadic meteors can make them harder to see and identify, so observers need dark skies and patience.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope, The Old Farmer's Almanac and other publications.

People keep asking me about the total solar eclipse on August 12. That's understandable. For anyone in the Northern Hemisphere, it is shaping up to be a joyous day of astronomy. Totality will cross eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain, but much of Europe will see a very deep partial eclipse, and even parts of North America will see a small bite taken from the sun. Then, just hours later, the Perseid meteor shower will peak beneath perfectly moonless skies. What a double-act!

The problem with promoting days and nights like that is that they make us think skywatching is only worth doing at very specific times. Everything becomes about moments, peaks and countdowns. That rings true for an eclipse, of course, but for the Perseids, it's less so.

The Perseid meteor shower actually begins right now. It's active from July 17 through August 24. Yes, it reaches a strong maximum overnight on August 12-13, where observers under ideal dark skies could see 50 or more "shooting stars" per hour. That's absolutely the night to aim for if you only go stargazing once a month. But for stargazers with a little more time, the hunt can begin right now.

The best Perseid is the first one you see. In these weeks before the peak, there's less expectation, less focus on the weather. An unexpected streak while you are outside feels accidental.

For me, it often happens when I've stopped observing properly for the night. Last summer, I was moving my telescope indoors late at night after a fairly unremarkable session looking at a few globular clusters. As I went back inside, I did my usual pause and look at the stars one last time. As I did, my peripheral vision caught a bright meteor whizzing across rooftops in the northeast. Summer's meteor season had begun with a bang when I least expected it to.

The Perseids officially build gradually over several weeks as Earth slowly enters the broad debris stream left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. It was last in the inner solar system in 1992 and will return in 2126. The peak around August 12—13 marks the densest part of the stream, but in mid-July, only a handful of meteors will appear each hour. That's exactly why early Perseids feel so special — you stumble across a meteor when you least expect it. Its gradual beginning also explains why some of the earliest Perseids can be surprisingly dramatic. The shower is famous for bright fireballs — large, vivid meteors that sometimes leave glowing trails lingering for several seconds. Even when overall meteor rates remain low in July, a single bright Perseid can add some magic to a night's observing.

What's happening and when to look

If you want to begin watching for Perseids this week, the best time is after midnight through the small hours before dawn, when the radiant constellation, Perseus, climbs higher in the northeastern sky. "Shooting stars" can appear anywhere in the night sky, but if their paths backward point roughly toward Perseus, it's a Perseid. That's what gives the shower its name.

There's more to look at than Perseids because July is quietly crowded with other meteor showers. The Southern Delta Aquariids begin strengthening through the second half of the month. From southern latitudes, they can produce roughly 25 meteors per hour under dark skies, though observers farther north tend to see fewer because the radiant stays low in the southern sky. These meteors are usually softer and subtler than Perseids — medium-speed streaks without many dramatic fireballs or glowing trails.

Running alongside them are the Alpha Capricornids, active from early July into mid-August. Technically, this is a weak shower, often producing only a handful of meteors per hour, but it compensates with unusually bright, slow-moving fireballs.

Unfortunately, both showers peak this year beneath an almost full Buck Moon on July 30-31, which will wash out many fainter meteors. But bright meteors and fireballs should still occasionally punch through the moonlight.

How and when I'm watching it

I will probably begin meteor season the same way I always do: accidentally. I'll increase the odds by lingering outdoors slightly longer than necessary on warm nights, staying up later than I should and using my smart telescope to collect data on deep-sky objects while I search the skies for the first Perseid. It's best done now, before the moon waxes to full, and certainly before early August, when it wanes — the worst moon phase for observing meteors because it's in the sky just as meteor activity peaks.

Stargazer's corner: July 17-24, 2026

With a new moon on July 14, this weekend is perfect for watching the return of a waxing crescent moon to the night sky. Look low in the west during dusk on Friday, July 17, to see a 16%-illuminated waxing crescent moon to the left of Venus. Watch it climb higher into the evening sky night after night, leaving genuinely dark late-night skies once it sets. It's good timing for the first serious Perseid-watching session of the season, particularly after midnight when meteor activity naturally increases as Earth rotates into the direction of travel around the sun.

Meanwhile, the Summer Triangle — formed by Vega, Deneb and Altair — hangs almost overhead during the darkest hours, making this one of the easiest seasonal star patterns for beginners to learn. Saturn now rises comfortably before midnight and dominates the southeastern sky by dawn, when it's joined by Mars and the stunning Pleiades open cluster.

Constellation of the week: Perseus

Perseus, "The Hero," never quite looks how beginners expect. Rising into the northeastern night sky around midnight this week between bright star Capella and Saturn in the east, its name suggests something dramatic, but the constellation itself appears more like a loose chain of stars stretching below Cassiopeia in the northeastern sky. At this time of year, Perseus rises late, which is why the best Perseid activity happens after midnight once the radiant climbs higher. Beginners often assume meteors appear only near the radiant itself, but the longest and most impressive Perseids usually streak much farther away across the sky. Perseus matters less as a viewing target than as a reminder that meteor showers are fundamentally about perspective. The meteors are not actually emerging from the constellation at all — Earth is simply driving through comet debris head-on.

Look up! The Perseid meteor shower is finally active, bringing the potential for gorgeous shooting stars and fireballs as Earth plunges into the trail of debris shed by the icy comet Swift-Tuttle. Here's what you need to know.

The Perseid meteor shower 2026 is set to be a truly magnificent affair and a stark contrast to last year, when moonlight drowned out all but the brightest shooting stars. The shower will reach peak activity overnight on Aug. 12-13 under the dark skies of the new moon. During the peak, up to 100 shooting stars may be seen each hour as they cut fiery paths through the summer sky, according to the American Meteor Society.

You could even spot a Perseid brightening the false twilight triggered at the climax of the Aug. 12. eclipse, as the moon perfectly hides the surface of our parent star. But for that to happen you'd have to find yourself in the path of totality just as a large fireball-producing meteoroid struck Earth's atmosphere. It's certainly possible, but let's just say that the odds aren't stacked in your favor.

If you're not in the path of totality then there's no need to despair, you stand a much better chance of spotting Perseids the old fashioned way anyway!

How to spot Perseid shooting stars

Perseid meteors can be spotted anytime after dark from tonight onwards, streaking away from a patch of sky, or radiant, located close to the red supergiant star Eta Persei in the constellation Perseus.

To find the best meteors, you'll first want to locate Perseus glistening above the northwestern horizon after dark. Next, find a patch of sky 40 degrees above it, and settle in for one of the year's premier natural light shows. This is where the shooting star trails will be at their longest.

The Perseids are also famed for producing vivid green fireballs capable of briefly turning night to day as larger chunks of debris collide with Earth's atmosphere at speeds of up to 37 miles per second (59 kilometers per second).

When to look for Perseid meteors

Perseid meteors may be spotted anytime from 10 p.m. onward for viewers in the U.S., though the number of visible shooting stars will be higher in the hours before dawn, when the radiant rises to its highest point in the summer night sky. Try to head away from city lights and allow at least 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the darkness.

Relatively few shooting stars will be visible in the days following the shower's awakening compared to the peak. However, if you do catch one, you'll have seen the demise of a meteoroid that's likely been flying through space for thousands of years before reaching Earth.

"The meteors we see early and late during the activity are most likely the oldest as they have obviously been perturbed from the main orbit of the comet, which we encounter in mid-August," said Robsert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society in an email to Space.com.

The greatest number of meteors can be seen in the predawn hours of Aug. 13 as the shower reaches peak activity, when Earth passes through the densest section of the debris stream left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle.

Want to capture your own photos of the Perseid meteor shower? Then be sure to read our guide detailing how to image shooting stars, along with our roundups of the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: Did you capture a photo of a Perseid and want to share it with Space.com's readers? Then please send your photos and comments, along with your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

On Aug. 12, I get to fulfil a lifelong ambition. I'll take a flight to Madrid and travel northwest to the city of Valladolid by rail, before striking out for Valoria la Buena — a charming town in central Spain with a population of less than 1,000.

There, I'll bear witness to one of the most spectacular naked eye shows that the solar system has to offer: a total solar eclipse. My first total solar eclipse.

Don't get me wrong. I've been obsessed with eclipses my entire life. I just haven't found myself in the right place at the right time to experience totality until now. 10-year-old me came pretty close during a deep partial eclipse in 1999, when I caught a fleeting glimpse of the moon's silhouette taking a bite out of the sun in the cloud-ridden skies over the United Kingdom.

Smash cut 20-something years later and I'm inexplicably the Skywatching Writer for Space.com, where one of the major perks of the job is being sent to report on eclipses. Things aligned quite nicely.

For the 2026 eclipse, I'll be joining a volunteer team from NASA's Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast (DEB) Initiative led by citizen scientist Charles Greenwald.

The DEB is a network of enthusiastic solar observers led by professional astronomers who use standardized telescopes and software to share inspiring eclipse imagery to the public, while also capturing valuable scientific data on the sun's disk and golden atmosphere.

It was Greenwald who scouted Valoria la Buena as a prime location to observe the eclipse. He's since been hard at work liaising with DEB initiative leadership to test software updates and troubleshoot other issues, while also travelling to Mexico to help train student members of the team ahead of their expedition to Spain. Two more eclipse enthusiasts are due to join the group once it arrives in Madrid, making it a wonderfully international affair.

Less than a month out, things are pretty settled, and a kind of nervous anticipation has taken hold. Flights and trains are booked, and I have a pair of Celestron EclipSmart 10x42 binoculars and the EclipSmart 3-Piece Solar Eclipse Observing and Imaging Kit, courtesy of Celestron. Also hats and an ungodly amount of suntan lotion. I'm bald after all, so the sun is my greatest natural predator.

Of course, preparations can only get you so far. Once we get to Valoria la Buena on Aug. 10 there'll still be important work to do. The first order of business for Charles and his DEB team will be to stake out a location with a clear line of sight to the west for their equipment. Totality will occur with the sun less than 10 degrees above the horizon — roughly the width of your clenched fist held at arm's length — so line of sight will be everything.

We'll also be at the mercy of the weather. Clouds could easily arrive to hide the cosmic show from view — especially with the eclipse so low on the horizon. The DEB team also has to find a spot with good connectivity, which will allow them to broadcast near-live images of our parent star for the public to enjoy and scientists to pore over.

All being well, myself, the DEB team and over 15 million others in the path of totality will bear witness to a heartstopping display of orbital mechanics that crescendos with the fleeting artificial night of totality, as the moon blocks the last sliver of the sun from view. Space.com's Skywatching Editor Daisy Dobrijevic will also be on hand to report on the total solar eclipse as it unfolds in the skies over Greenland.

We can't wait to share our experiences with you. Be sure to stick with Space.com to discover everything there is to know about the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse, along with details on how to watch it online, which will be published closer to the event!

You should also read our guide to safely observing the sun, to ensure that you're ready to enjoy the eclipse, and our roundup of the best solar viewing equipment available in 2026 if you're looking for safe, quality gear.

Editor's Note: Want to share your eclipse photography with Space.com's readers? Then please send your photos and comments, along with your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

On Aug. 12, 2026, skywatchers across the U.K. will experience a rare astronomical double-header: a deep partial solar eclipse before sunset followed, hours later, by the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the path of totality will sweep from Greenland and Iceland to Spain, it will miss Britain entirely. However, the solar eclipse will still be dramatic, with up to 96% of the sun obscured for viewers in the far southwest.

This will be the U.K.'s deepest partial solar eclipse since 2015, and timing will be everything. The eclipse reaches its peak around 7:00-7:16 p.m. BST, with the sun hanging low above the west-northwest horizon as a narrowing crescent shortly before sunset. Because the sun will be relatively low, choosing the right location will matter far more than traveling huge distances. Coastal viewpoints, hilltops and open landscapes with unobstructed western horizons will offer guaranteed views — if the sky is clear.

The locations below prioritize another crucial factor: dark skies. While the eclipse will be visible almost everywhere in the U.K. and most will be happy to see it from close to where they live, the real reward comes after darkness falls, when the Perseids begin flashing across the sky. Find somewhere remote, stay overnight — ideally camp — and this could become one of the most memorable observing sessions of the year.

Eclipse timings and sightlines are from Xavier Jubier's Interactive Google Maps; cloud cover is from Time and Date, the figures reflect long-term climatological averages for mid-August, not weather forecasts. Bortle and sky quality meter (SQM) data come from the Light Pollution map.

During a partial solar eclipse, it is NEVER safe to look directly at the sun without solar eclipse glasses designed for solar viewing. Read our guide on how to observe the sun safely.

1. Hugh Town

The Isles of Scilly combine Britain's deepest partial eclipse with some of southern England's darkest skies. From Hugh Town and nearby west-facing beaches on St Mary's, the eclipsed sun will hang low above the Atlantic Ocean late in the day. Later that night, with minimal light pollution and broad sea horizons, the islands are an exceptional place to watch the Perseid meteor shower beneath pristine late-summer skies.

2. Land's End

Land's End is one of the best places on mainland Britain to watch the eclipse because of its vast Atlantic horizon and minimal obstruction toward the west-northwest. The sun will appear heavily eclipsed as it descends toward the ocean before sunset. After dark, the remote far-western location and low levels of artificial light make this region an outstanding destination for viewing the Perseid meteor shower.

3. Boscastle

Boscastle's narrow harbor and dramatic valley may create a natural frame for the eclipsed sun as it sinks toward the Atlantic. The village's northwest-facing coastline offers clear views toward the low evening eclipse, while the surrounding Cornish countryside remains relatively dark after sunset. Once twilight fades, the cliffs and headlands nearby become excellent places to watch for bright Perseid meteors.

4. Exmoor Dark Sky Reserve

Exmoor combines elevated moorland, dramatic coastline and protected dark skies, making it ideal for both the eclipse and the Perseids. Coastal viewpoints such as Valley of Rocks and Heddon's Mouth offer clear west-facing horizons for the low-eclipsed sun before sunset. Later that night, Exmoor's status as a Dark Sky Reserve makes it perfect for seeing bright Perseid meteors — and the Milky Way.

5. Rhossili Bay

Rhossili Bay's enormous west-facing beach and elevated clifftops make it ideal for watching a low eclipse unfold above the sea. Located on the Gower Peninsula, the area is a Dark Sky Community that retains relatively dark skies despite its popularity during the day. As darkness falls later that evening, the open coastal landscape provides excellent visibility for Perseid meteors.

6. Strumble Head

Strumble Head offers one of the clearest west-facing horizons in Wales, with the eclipsed sun appearing above the Irish Sea beside its iconic lighthouse. The remote Pembrokeshire coastline experiences very little artificial light, helping preserve dark skies after sunset. Once the eclipse ends, this rugged headland becomes an excellent place to watch the Perseids, with broad ocean views and little interference from nearby towns.

7. Llŷn Peninsula

The remote Llŷn Peninsula projects deep into the Irish Sea, offering expansive views toward the west-northwest horizon, where the eclipsed sun will appear before sunset. It is also one of the darkest regions in Wales, lying close to the protected skies of Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) Dark Sky Sanctuary. With minimal light pollution and wide rural vistas, the peninsula becomes a superb location for watching Perseid meteors later that same night.

8. Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park

Galloway Forest Park was Britain's first Dark Sky Park and remains one of the country's premier stargazing destinations. Open western views around Clatteringshaws Loch, along with other viewpoints away from the forests, make it well-suited to the low evening eclipse. After twilight fades, exceptionally dark skies reveal the Milky Way in striking detail, creating near-perfect conditions for viewing the Perseid meteor shower in the early hours — if the sky is clear.

9. Northumberland Dark Sky Park

Northumberland's Dark Sky Park combines remote landscapes with some of England's darkest skies. Locations around Kielder Water and Northumberland National Park provide broad views toward the low west-northwest eclipse shortly before sunset. Later that night, the region becomes one of the finest places in Europe to watch the Perseids, with frequent views of the Milky Way and bright meteors overhead. Check for any events at Kielder Observatory.

10. Giant's Causeway

The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland offers a spectacular foreground for the eclipse, with the sun appearing low above the Atlantic beyond the famous basalt columns. Although the skies here are not as dark as in some rural parks, the north Antrim coastline still experiences relatively modest light pollution. Nearby coastal viewpoints and beaches provide good conditions for watching Perseid meteors later that night beneath expansive northern skies.

Sometimes weeks go by without anything notable happening in the sky. Then along comes something spectacular, like a total solar eclipse, the peak of a major meteor shower or a bright planet reaching a landmark moment in the evening sky. On Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, all three occur almost simultaneously. As a bonus, if you are under a dark sky for the Perseids, the Milky Way's bright central regions will stretch across the southern sky by around midnight.

Exactly what you'll see of the eclipse depends on where you are on Earth. From within a narrow 180-mile-wide path of totality across eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain, a total solar eclipse will briefly turn day into night for lucky locals and intrepid eclipse chasers. Across the U.K., millions will see a partial eclipse of the sun, ranging from 90% to 95%. Across Europe and northwest Africa, an equally deeply eclipsed sun will peak at sunset, creating a truly strange sight. Minutes later, brilliant Venus reaches dichotomy — appearing exactly half-lit in telescopes, while to the naked eye it blazes at magnitude -4.4 in the western twilight. A few hours later, the annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak.

Wherever you are, there will be something worth looking at. Here's exactly what will happen, where and when, depending on where you are (times are from Time and Date).

Iceland or Greenland: a total solar eclipse … and aurora?

If you've traveled to (or live in) western Iceland, or you're booked on an expedition cruise ship on Aug. 12, you're in for a treat. The point of maximum eclipse — 2 minutes 18 seconds — is off the coast of Iceland, accessible by ship, but likely not by many. It's possible that expedition ships in the lower reaches of Scoresby Sund, Greenland, will experience the most totality, with 2 minutes 17 seconds possible at 4:36 p.m. WGST, with the eclipse 25 degrees above the west-southwest. Here, the sun will set at 10:15 p.m., with the darkest time about 12:50 a.m. — there is no truly dark night, just all-night civil twilight. That makes the Perseids and aurora unlikely to be seen even if they're present. Ditto Venus — Greenland is too far north.

In Iceland, totality will begin between 5:43 and 5:50 p.m. GMT, depending on the exact location. It will last longest in regions farthest west, with 2 minutes 13 seconds at Látrabjarg in the remote Westfjords (5:44 p.m.) and 2 minutes 10 seconds at the westernmost coast of Snæfellsnes Peninsula (5:45 p.m.). The eclipse will be 25.5 degrees above the west-southwest. The sun will set at 9:53 p.m. in Reykjavík, with the darkest window from 11:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. (and the darkest time 1:30 a.m.). That makes Perseids and aurora possible — though summer twilight often limits visibility. However, Venus will not be visible after sunset.

Spain: Totality, Venus and the Perseids

For anyone within Spain's path of totality, Aug. 12 promises to be one of the greatest days of skywatching imaginable. The main event comes late in the day as the moon completely covers the sun. In parts of northern and eastern Spain, totality will occur with the sun hanging low above the western horizon, creating one of the most photogenic eclipse scenarios of the century.

In Spain, totality will begin between 8:26 and 8:33 p.m. CEST, depending on the exact location. Its maximum duration in Spain will last longest in regions farthest northwest, with 1 minute 50 seconds at Playa de la Escaladina in Galicia (8:26 p.m.), where the eclipse will be 11 degrees above the west-northwest. It will be at its shortest, at 1 minute 36 seconds, at Bellavista, Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands (8:31 p.m.). The eclipse will be just a couple of degrees above the west-northwest. The sun will set at 9:16 p.m. in Madrid, with a dark night from around midnight through 4:40 a.m. CEST. The darkest part of the night — and the point when the radiant point Perseus will be high above the horizon — will be around 02:00 a.m. CEST.

Unless there's a whopping solar storm (unlikely), concentrate on the Perseid meteor shower, rather than hoping for aurora. Light pollution is irrelevant for a total solar eclipse, but if you've cross-referenced your eclipse-viewing sight with a Light Pollution Map, you'll be in Bortle 4 skies in rural Spain, ready for a potentially unforgettable Perseids (the solar eclipse means by definition that it's taking place at new moon, after all). Under rural Spanish skies, particularly in dark-sky regions away from towns and cities, observers could see 30 to 50 meteors per hour, with occasional bursts producing even more.

It might be wise to have an afternoon nap before the eclipse — it could be a long, exciting night if skies are clear.

U.K: Deep eclipse, Venus and the Perseids

The path of totality misses Britain entirely, but Aug. 12 will still be a remarkable day. Across most of the U.K., more than 90% of the sun will be covered by the moon, with maximum eclipse shortly after 7 p.m. BST. The sun will hang low above the west-northwest horizon as a narrowing crescent, so the best locations will be coastal viewpoints, hilltops and open landscapes with clear western horizons. London, Manchester and Glasgow all experience about 91% coverage, while Cardiff reaches 93%. The deepest eclipse will be seen in the far southwest, with 96% coverage in the Isles of Scilly and almost 96% at Land's End in Cornwall.

Although it will not become as dark as during totality, observers may notice a subtle drop in temperature and a strange dimming of the landscape. Shadows will soften, colors will become muted, and daylight will take on an unusual quality that many first-time eclipse watchers find surprising.

Once the eclipse ends, Venus becomes the next target. Look west after sunset for the dazzling Evening Star. Venus is only days from its greatest elongation and near its best evening appearance of 2026, making it hard to miss. Even a small telescope will reveal its half-lit phase. The Perseids will then peak during the early hours of Aug. 13.

Western Europe: Eclipsed sunset, Venus and the Perseids

For millions of people across Western Europe, Aug. 12 offers a slightly different spectacle. Instead of totality or a partial eclipse in late afternoon, many locations will witness a deeply eclipsed sun setting below the horizon. An eclipsed sunset is surprisingly rare, and particularly one this deep. In some places, more than 90% of the sun will be obscured as it approaches the horizon, creating a dramatic crescent-shaped sunset. In places such as Corsica, the Ligurian coast, Venice, the Alps and parts of central Europe, photographers will have the chance to capture one of the most dramatic sunset eclipses visible anywhere this decade.

With Venus visible across Europe after sunset, as well as the Milky Way and the Perseids peak, Aug. 12 will effectively become an all-night astronomy festival across Europe.

North America: Partial eclipse, Venus and the Perseids

The total solar eclipse — and a deep partial eclipse — may belong to Europe, but North America gets its own small version of the event. A partial solar eclipse will be visible from Alaska to New England, touching 26 U.S. states and every Canadian province. While the eclipse is modest compared with North America's recent total eclipses, millions of people will still be able to participate in the global event.

The deepest U.S. eclipse occurs in Alaska, where Fairbanks will see about 37% of the sun covered and Anchorage almost 28% (8:21 a.m. AKDT). In the Northeast, Maine gets the best view, with about 28% obscuration (1:50 p.m. EDT), while Boston sees 16% (1:55 p.m. EDT) and New York City about 10% (1:54 p.m. EDT). In Canada, the eclipse becomes considerably more impressive. Iqaluit, Nunavut, will see 61% of the sun covered (1:24 p.m. EDT), while St. John's, Newfoundland, will experience more than half of the sun obscured (3:35 p.m. NDT). Every Canadian province will see at least some part of the eclipse. Remember that eclipse glasses are still essential, even for small partial eclipses.

If you're looking for a telescope or binoculars to make the most of these incredible skywatching events, our guides for the best binocular deals and the best telescope deals are here to help. Interested in capturing the night sky? Check out our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

One month from today, millions will turn their eyes to the skies for one of the most anticipated skywatching events of the year: the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026.

The eclipse will sweep across parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain, briefly turning day into night for those lucky enough to be within the narrow path of totality.

It's been a long time coming for European skywatchers, as the event marks Europe's first total solar eclipse since 1999.

Where can I see the total solar eclipse?

If you're hoping to experience totality, now is the time to finalize your plans. The path of totality crosses Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain, with maximum eclipse lasting up to 2 minutes and 18 seconds.

Spain is expected to be one of the most popular destinations thanks to its favorable weather prospects, though it's not without a catch! Viewers will need to secure a clear view of the western horizon because the eclipsed sun will sit very low in the sky during totality.

Will I see the eclipse from where I live?

Not inside the path of totality? Don't worry. A spectacular partial solar eclipse will be visible across much of Europe, with more than 90% of the sun covered from locations including London, Paris and Dublin.

If you're still deciding where to watch, we have several guides on the best viewing locations close to popular Spanish holiday destinations, the best Spanish beaches, and the best places to view the eclipse overall.

How we will be covering the eclipse

Over the coming weeks, Space.com will bring you everything you need to prepare for eclipse day. We'll publish viewing guides, safety advice and information on how to watch the eclipse online.

Closer to the event, we'll launch a dedicated live blog covering the latest eclipse news and insights from our reporters in the field.

Skywatching Editor Daisy Dobrijevic will join an eclipse expedition to Greenland with HX, while Skywatching Writer Anthony Wood will travel to northern Spain with the DEB initiative and citizen scientists to report firsthand from the path of totality.

Should stargazers also be cloudspotters? Everyone knows clouds are the first thing you see as soon as you get under a dark sky or buy a new telescope — it's almost guaranteed! However, by early July, I usually start actively looking for a special kind of noctilucent or "night shining" cloud — and they can be a magnificent sight to rival anything celestial.

At its core, the search for these so-called "space clouds" is the flip side of the seemingly never-ending twilight in July in mid-northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. You wait all winter for tolerable temperatures, then summer arrives and the night sky never properly commits to darkness. At my latitude, the northern horizon glows all evening in early-to-mid July like somebody forgot to turn the sun off completely. Serious stargazing gets harder as even bright constellations seem washed out by lingering light.

Cue noctilucent clouds. Peer at the northern sky during twilight between late May and August, and you may see strange silver-blue ripples. Delicate yet bright, they can look artificial — thin electric-blue strands stretched across twilight, with a texture like smoke. They seem entirely detached from the normal atmosphere.

Noctilucent clouds are an accident. They are caused by sunlight striking ice crystals roughly 50 miles above Earth, near the edge of space, where ice crystals can only form under extremely cold conditions. They exist so high in the mesosphere — a layer of Earth's atmosphere above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere — that they continue to glow long after sunset, because the sun is still shining on them even though it has set as seen from beneath.

Water vapor should not exist in the mesosphere, a dry layer on the edge of space. Yet under the right conditions, trace amounts of water vapor can freeze onto tiny particles, creating the ice crystals that make noctilucent clouds possible.

While greenhouse gases warm the Earth's surface, they cool the mesosphere, allowing the increased moisture to freeze. There is growing evidence that changing upper-atmosphere conditions and increasing atmospheric moisture may be affecting how often noctilucent clouds appear and how far south they are seen.

Perversely, noctilucent clouds arrive exactly during the brightest weeks of the year, when many stargazers are complaining that there is nothing worth observing. Cloudspotting on summer nights was probably not on your stargazing wishlist when you started, but for some of us, the chance of noctilucent clouds is all we have for a few weeks. See them once, and they'll fast become a seasonal delight you'll wait all year for.

What's happening and when to look

If you want to search for noctilucent clouds this week, look north about an hour to two hours after sunset, or before sunrise, during deep twilight when the sky is dark except in the extreme north. July is prime season across northern latitudes, including much of the U.K., northern Europe, Canada and the northern U.S. You do not need total darkness.

The key is a clear northern horizon. Noctilucent clouds usually appear low in the sky as pale blue, silver or sometimes faintly gold ripples and filaments. Beginners often mistake them for illuminated cirrus clouds at first, but ordinary clouds darken after sunset. Noctilucent clouds keep glowing with an oddly cold brightness.

How and when I'm watching it

You wouldn't typically go out on a special trip to see noctilucent clouds — it's too much of a long shot (though if they're sighted one night, going out the following night is a good idea). Instead, I have developed a habit of checking the northern horizon obsessively every clear July evening before bed. If I'm lucky, I'll pause if the twilight looks suspiciously textured. Noctilucent clouds don't hang around for long — they reward attentiveness more than planning. You don't need telescopes or even dark-adapted eyes, just a willingness to keep looking north during a season when many astronomy enthusiasts assume nothing interesting is happening.

Stargazer's corner: July 10-17, 2026

The real challenge in July is not moonlight but the simple fact that darkness never fully settles at northern latitudes. This week, the moon wanes toward new, creating some fabulous opportunities for anyone crazy enough to get up very early. The prime moment is about 80 minutes before sunrise on July 11, when you can glimpse a 15%-illuminated waning crescent moon curled up to the Pleiades open cluster (M45), with Mars and red supergiant star Aldebaran below. For something more leisurely, look west after sunset on July 17 to see the exact opposite sight — a 15%-illuminated waxing crescent moon close to Venus. Put a telescope on Venus itself, and you'll see that it's now a 60%-lit gibbous shape as it gets closer to Earth.

Constellation of the week: Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia becomes especially useful during the noctilucent cloud season because it remains visible above the northern horizon throughout summer twilight. It's a familiar W-shape that cuts through even bright skies surprisingly well. It's a circumpolar constellation, so it always sits opposite the Big Dipper, forming two distinctive shapes permanently wheeling around Polaris, the North Star.

My latest stargazing obsession

I'm always on the lookout for puddles. The dark skies coming this week will be a fabulous time to photograph nightscapes, including the Milky Way, but composition is everything. The night sky reflected in still water can look more dramatic than the sky itself because reflections compress and simplify structure. If I'm under a dark sky (or even in twilight) with a camera, I actively search for reflective surfaces — parked car roofs, wet pavements, ponds and puddles. Stargazing teaches you that observing is not always about pointing higher into the sky. It's often just as much about noticing how Earth participates in the view.