Tips to take in the sky from your own backyard, front stoop, or neighborhood park.
You can see wondrous things in the night sky over the city, if you know how to look.
The colder the better
Whether you use a telescope, binoculars, or the naked eye, cold, windless nights offer the best viewing conditions. The more heat means more motion in the atmosphere, which distorts the dim light from stars.
No telescope? No problem.
From major constellations to shooting stars and the International Space Station, there are plenty of fascinating objects in the night sky visible without any special equipment at all.
You want to be kept in the dark
It takes your eyes about an hour to adjust to the dark sky—so the longer you can go without looking at indoor lighting, street lamps, or headlights, the better.
Find your north star
If you want to be able to identify a star without help from your phone, the North Star—or Polaris—is a good place to start. Polaris’s position holds steady throughout the night, and you can find it using the Big Dipper: just look along the imaginary line between the constellation’s outermost stars—the two farthest from the “handle.”
Give the moon some relief
The best time to look at the moon actually isn’t when it’s full. That’s when the sun is shining straight onto its face, so details can look a little washed out. But when the moon is waxing or waning—especially between quarter and crescent phases—the light is hitting it indirectly, so the moon’s craters and mountains throw great big shadows on its surface. To tell whether the moon is waxing or waning, look at the shape: a waxing (growing) moon looks like the letter “D”; a waning (shrinking) moon like a “C.”
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