2026

The world's best-selling astronomy magazine offers you the most exciting, visually stunning, and timely coverage of the heavens above. Each monthly issue includes expert science reporting, vivid color photography, complete sky coverage, spot-on observing tips, informative telescope reviews, and much more! All this in an easy-to-understand, user-friendly style that's perfect for astronomers at any level.

Telescopes and Equipment

Kickstart summer with these new astronomy products

Side-by-side grayscale comparison of the Moon's two hemispheres. The left image shows the familiar near side of the Moon, featuring large dark volcanic plains called maria that give it a distinctive mottled appearance. The right image shows the far side of the Moon, which lacks significant maria and instead appears more uniformly cratered and bright, with prominent crater ray systems radiating outward from impact sites.

Science, Solar System

Why does one side of the Moon have a lot of craters, while the other does not?

X-ray and optical composite image of IGR J11014-6103, a pulsar wind nebula, from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A large, diffuse cloud of magenta/pink X-ray emission dominates the upper left, representing a supernova remnant. To the lower right, a smaller bright green and pink structure shows a pulsar with jets and a curved tail of X-ray emission trailing behind it, indicating rapid motion through space. Background stars are visible throughout. Credit: Chandra X-ray Center (chandra.si.edu).

What does the term ‘supersonic’ mean in astronomy?

Two bright planets — Venus and Jupiter — shine as close points of light in a deep blue twilight sky above an illuminated city skyline at dusk. The city's skyscrapers, tower, and sprawling lights glow against a gradient sky that fades from deep blue above to lighter blue near the horizon, with low clouds hugging the rooftops.

June 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Venus and Jupiter have a spectacular conjunction, and the Moon occults Venus

A twilight photograph taken from the shore of a calm lake, looking toward a park with trees, streetlights, and a tall flagpole silhouetted against a deep blue and orange dusk sky. Three planets — Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter — are visible as bright points of light in the sky, with two clustered close together near the horizon and one higher up. Their reflections shimmer faintly in the still water below, which is dotted with aquatic plants.

June 2026: What’s in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month?

A wide-field view of M44, the Beehive Cluster, showing a loose, sprawling grouping of bright, individually resolved stars scattered across the center of the frame. The cluster's most prominent members are large, brilliant blue-white stars, contrasted by several warm orange and golden stars interspersed among them. The cluster has no tight central concentration, spreading openly across the field with a rich background of much fainter stars visible throughout the deep black sky.

Deep-Sky Objects, Observing

Observe spring’s star clusters

A vivid aurora borealis fills the night sky with sweeping green and pink curtains of light above a snow-covered coastal hillside in the Arctic. The calm water of a fjord reflects the glow, while rounded rocks line the shoreline in the foreground and distant lights illuminate a small structure on the far shore.

Uncovering the science of aurorae

Photograph showing the close conjunction of bright Venus with the star Regulus in Leo at dawn on October 3, 2020.

July 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Venus and Jupiter are visible in the evening, plus a conjunction of Mars and Uranus before dawn

See it for yourself

Tall graphic showing a dark, jagged mountain range at the bottom under a bright, star-filled night sky. A wide, colorful band of the Milky Way stretches diagonally across the frame in blues, purples, and pinks against deep blue-black space. In front, two people appear in silhouette—one bent to look through a large telescope on a tripod, the other standing and holding up a phone toward the sky.

Telescopes and Equipment

How to buy your first telescope

No place like home

July 2026: What’s in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month?