Astrophotography in January 2026: what to shoot in the night sky this month

Hubble Space Telescope view of planet Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019

(Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley))

January brings long, cold nights rich with astrophotography targets. The month opens with a full Wolf Moon, followed quickly by the Quadrantid meteor shower peaking, albeit under bright moonlight. Jupiter reaches opposition on 10 January, dominating the night sky and offering planetary imagers their best views of the gas giant this year, before a valuable dark-sky window for deep-sky imagers mid-month.

Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in January 2026:

Saturday-Sunday, 3-4 January: A full Wolf Moon

close up view of a perfectly full moon rising in the partly snow covered mountains. Majestic mountain peaks are visible. The sky is intensely blue with no clouds. — Full moon over the Austrian Alps. Nikon Z50 with Z 50-250mm. 1/160sec at f/7.1, ISO800 (Image credit: Getty Images)

January’s first full moon — the Wolf Moon — is 100%-lit on Saturday, 3 January, but. For the most photogenic results, plan to shoot at moonrise/moonset when the moon is low, close to the landscape, and colored by the atmosphere. For best results, make a plan in advance, using apps like Photo Ephemeris, PhotoPills and Planit Pro to line the moon up with city skylines, lighthouses or mountain ridges.

Aim for a telephoto lens in the 200-500mm range on a tripod, start at around 1/125 sec, f/8 and ISO 100, then bracket a stop either side. Switch to manual focus and use live view at maximum magnification to nail the focus — the moon's surface absolutely must be sharp.

Read: How to photograph the full moon.

Saturday-Sunday, 3-4 January: Quadrantid meteor shower peaks

A shooting star streaks across a frozen landscape near Kamloops, BC, Canada — The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on 3-4 January, but 2026’s full moon will wash out fainter meteors. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The first major meteor shower of the year, the Quadrantids, peaks on the night of January 3-4, with up to 120 meteors per hour in ideal conditions — but this year the bright full moon will severely limit what naked-eye observers see. For photographers, it makes little difference because the best way to capture “shooting stars” is to leave a camera outside for several hours, taking long exposures. Mount a wide-angle lens (14-24mm) on a sturdy tripod and dial in 25-second exposures, balancing the aperture and ISO to produce a good-looking, moon-free night image (though the presence of a full moon in the night sky will mean a higher f-number and a lower ISO). Use an intervalometer or built-in time-lapse mode to fire continuously for a few hours, then scan your frames later for meteor trails.

Read: Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

January 11-22 : Dark-sky window

Dark January nights are perfect for photographing the Orion Nebula. (Image credit: Getty Images)

With the moon rising at midnight for its last quarter phase on 11-12 January, then later each night through new moon on 18-19 January, this period brings dark evening skies and, around new moon, true moonless nights. It’s prime time to image winter’s deep-sky showpieces: the Orion Nebula (M42), Horsehead and Flame Nebulae, the Pleiades (M45) and other open clusters such as M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga. Use a star tracker if you have one; with a 24-85mm lens, you can shoot 1-3-minute sub-exposures at ISO 800-3200 and f/2.8–f/4, then stack them later for clean, detailed results. For untracked setups — i.e., just using a camera and tripod — keep exposures to 10-20 seconds to avoid star trailing.

Read: The best star tracker camera mounts

January 19-23: Crescent moon, Earthshine and Saturn

Right after the sunset, the poetic waxing crescent moon of July is setting in company of giants of Toronto . — A slim crescent moon with Earthshine makes a delicate twilight imaging target. (Image credit: Getty Images)

A few evenings after new moon, a slim waxing crescent hangs low in the southwest after sunset, with the rest of the moon faintly lit by Earthshine — light reflected from clouds and oceans back onto the dark lunar surface, just as bright moonlight lights up nights on Earth. On 19-21 January, it’s just a few percent illuminated.

Use an 85-200mm lens on a tripod, expose once for the bright crescent (for example, 1/60 sec, f/4, ISO 400) and again for the dim Earth-lit portion (around 1-2 seconds at the same ISO), then blend the frames into a simple HDR composite. Manual focus on a bright star or planet before reframing, and use a 2-second timer or remote release to avoid camera shake. On 22-23 January, the moon will be brighter as it passes Saturn.

Read: The best cameras for astrophotography

Astrophotography shot of the month: Jupiter at opposition

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA&rsquo;s Hubble Space Telescope on August 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble&rsquo;s sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet&rsquo;s turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the Great Red Spot changing color &ndash; again.A unique and exciting detail of Hubble&rsquo;s snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright white stretched-out storm moving at 350 miles per hour (563 kilometers per hour). This single plume erupted on August 18, 2020 and another has since appeared.While it&rsquo;s common for storms to pop up in this region, oftentimes multiple at once, this particular disturbance appears to have more structure behind it than observed in storms of the past. Trailing behind the plume are small, counterclockwise-like dark clumps also not witnessed in the past. Researchers speculate this may be the beginning of a longer-lasting Northern Hemisphere spot, as perhaps a rival to the legendary Great Red Spot that dominates the southern hemisphere.Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet&rsquo;s southern hemisphere, is plowing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. The Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red color, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red.Researchers say the Great Red Spot now measures about 9,800 miles across, big enough to swallow Earth. The super-storm is still shrinking as noted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but its rate of downsizing appears to have slowed. The reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.Another feature researchers are noticing has changed is Oval BA, nicknamed by astronomers as Red Spot, Jr., which appears just below the Great Red Spot in this image. For the past few years, Red Spot, Jr. has been fading in color to its original shade of white after appearing red in 2006. However, now, the core of this storm appears to be darkening to a reddish hue. This could hint that Red Spot, Jr. is on its way to turning to a color more similar to its cousin once again.Hubble&rsquo;s image shows that Jupiter is clearing out its higher altitude white clouds, especially along the planet&rsquo;s equator, where an orangish hydrocarbon smog wraps around Jupiter.The icy moon Europa, potential home for life, is visible to the left of the gas giant.This Hubble image is part of yearly maps of the entire planet taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides yearly Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds, and clouds. — Jupiter at opposition is the month’s best planetary imaging target. This image captured by the Hubble Telescope shows Jupiter and its moon Europa (Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team)

On Saturday, January 10, Jupiter reaches its annual bright opposition in the constellation Gemini, shining at around magnitude -2.7 and riding in the sky all night long. It’s the ideal time for high-resolution planetary imaging. At opposition, the giant planet is closest to Earth, and its disc appears slightly larger, so finer details in its cloud belts, the Great Red Spot, are easier to resolve. Its four Galilean moons are also easier to see in images as pinpricks of light around the giant planet.

For optimal results, use a telescope with an effective focal length of 1500-3000mm. When imaging Jupiter, you’re at the mercy of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, so instead of aiming for perfect single stills, use a high frame rate planetary camera in place of an eyepiece to record short videos (1-3 minutes). The quality of each frame will be uninspiring, but software such as AutoStakker can combine them to make a sharp image, with software like RegiStax able to further sharpen up the results.

When Jupiter is highest in the sky, distortion from the atmosphere is at its minimum – this month, that’s about local midnight. Sky At Night has a good guide to imaging Jupiter, as does AstroBackyard.

Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

Jamie has been writing about photography, astronomy, astro-tourism and astrophotography for over 15 years, producing content for Forbes, Space.com, Live Science, Techradar, T3, BBC Wildlife, Science Focus, Sky & Telescope, BBC Sky At Night, South China Morning Post, The Guardian, The Telegraph and Travel+Leisure.

As the editor for When Is The Next Eclipse, he has a wealth of experience, expertise and enthusiasm for astrophotography, from capturing the moon and meteor showers to solar and lunar eclipses.

He also brings a great deal of knowledge on action cameras, 360 cameras, AI cameras, camera backpacks, telescopes, gimbals, tripods and all manner of photography equipment.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.