Every night of 2026 at this latitude, drawn as the hours between astronomical dusk and astronomical dawn. 2,368 hours in the year, and 90 nights with none at all.
8 of the 12 objects on the house list are worth the trouble in month 10. Each altitude below is where the object stands at the moment this page draws, computed rather than looked up.
The Andromeda Galaxy
mag 3.40 · alt 60°
Two and a half million light years, and from the break in the trees it is a naked-eye smudge on any decent night from September on. The furthest thing most people will ever see without help.
The Pleiades
mag 1.60 · alt 21°
Six to most people, seven if the plantation is behind you and you have waited. Counting them is the oldest sight test there is, and it works.
The Double Cluster
mag 4.30 · alt 55°
The Double Cluster, high enough at this latitude to be almost overhead in autumn. Better in binoculars than in the telescope, which surprises people.
The North America Nebula
mag 4.00 · alt 76°
The North America Nebula. Genuinely hard, genuinely there, and the object that best rewards the full twenty-five minutes rather than the first ten.
Albireo
mag 3.07 · alt 52°
Albireo. Gold and blue, and one of the very few places colour survives at all once your eyes have gone over to rods — because both stars are bright enough for the cones to hold on.
Mizar
mag 2.29 · alt 28°
Mizar, with Alcor beside it. Circumpolar, so it is available every clear night of the year, which makes it the thing the guides start with.
Polaris
mag 2.04 · alt 55°
Polaris, sitting fifty-five degrees up — exactly the latitude of this glen, which is the single easiest thing to verify for yourself and the reason to trust the rest of these numbers.
Almach
mag 2.25 · alt 49°
Almach. A tighter gold-and-blue pair than Albireo and a better one, if the air over the plantation is steady enough to split it.
Out of season this month, and listed rather than hidden: The Orion Nebula, The Hercules Cluster, The Beehive Cluster, The Coma Star Cluster.
A dark sky with a gibbous moon in it is a suburban sky. Nothing on this site pretends otherwise, and the figures below are for the night being drawn above.
1% lit
Below the horizon, so it is not costing you anything tonight. Little enough not to matter for most of what the guides show.
9 h 02
Between astronomical dusk at 20:34 and astronomical dawn at 05:36 on 9 October 2026.
For 90 nights of 2026 the sun never gets eighteen degrees below this horizon. On those nights there is no astronomical darkness here at all — not less of it, none — and no amount of waiting outside will produce any.
We would rather tell you that than sell you one of them. The ledger above marks every one, and the arithmetic behind it is the same arithmetic that produces the good numbers on the rest of this site.