Night sky over Los Angeles
The page stands in Los Angeles (34.0° N, 118.2° W) and looks up at tonight's sky over it: by day its clock starts at Los Angeles's dusk, so the Moon, the planets and the bright stars are where they will be once it's dark there, with the satellites in sunlight crossing between them.
The list below says tonight over Los Angeles in words, worked out as the page is served: sunset and when it gets dark on Los Angeles's clock (America/Los_Angeles), the Moon's phase and when it's up, and for each planet when it rises or sets, how high it climbs and where to face, with the next meteor shower.
Tonight over Los Angeles, Mon 2 Nov
- Sunsets , dark from to , rises
- Moonlast quarter, 37% lit: rises in the ENE, 53° up in the SE by dawn
- Marsrises in the ENE, 66° up in the SE by dawn · magnitude 0.9, in Leo
- Jupiterrises in the ENE, 61° up in the SE by dawn · magnitude −2.0, in Leo
- Saturn28° up in the ESE at dusk, highest at , 57° up in the S, sets in the W · magnitude 0.4, in Cetus
- Not seen tonightMercury, Venus: below the horizon or too low while the sky is dark
- Leonidsthe next meteor shower, peaking around 17 Nov at up to 15 meteors an hour under a dark sky, best from anywhere, before dawn
Times on Los Angeles's clock (PST), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
At 34° north, Los Angeles sees the planets ride high: around midnight in winter the ecliptic climbs to nearly 80° up, far above the haze over the basin. The Pacific makes a clean western horizon for an evening planet setting after the Sun, and the San Gabriel Mountains block the low northeast.
Griffith Observatory sets up free telescopes on its lawn on clear evenings, and Mount Wilson, above Pasadena, has public nights at the telescopes Hubble used. For a truly dark sky, Joshua Tree National Park, about two and a half hours east, and Borrego Springs in the Anza-Borrego desert, a Dark Sky Community, show the Milky Way from horizon to horizon.
Questions
Can you see the Milky Way from Los Angeles?
Not from the basin: the city’s lights wash it out entirely. In the desert to the east it’s plain on a moonless night, brightest in summer when its core stands in the south after dark. Check the Moon in the list above; a bright one hides it even out there.
Does the marine layer hide the night sky over Los Angeles?
Often near the coast in May and June, when low cloud rolls in after sunset and can sit until late morning. The hills and inland valleys often rise above it, so Griffith Park or the foothills can be clear while the beaches are gray.
Which way do I look for planets from Los Angeles?
South, mostly: the planets cross the southern sky. The list gives each one’s direction at dusk or when it rises, and its height, so you can face the right way from a balcony or a parking lot with a view.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=featured&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&view=sky&lat=34.05&lon=-118.24&tonight=1
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
