Night sky over Paris
The page stands in Paris (48.9° N, 2.4° E) and looks up at tonight's sky over it: by day its clock starts at Paris'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 Paris in words, worked out as the page is served: sunset and when it gets dark on Paris's clock (Europe/Paris), 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 Paris, Mon 2 Nov
- Sunsets , dark from to , rises
- Moonlast quarter, 40% lit: rises in the ENE, 48° up in the SE by dawn
- Marsrises in the ENE, 55° up in the SSE by dawn · magnitude 0.9, in Leo
- Jupiterrises in the ENE, 52° up in the SSE by dawn · magnitude −2.0, in Leo
- Saturn20° up in the ESE at dusk, highest at , 42° 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 Paris's clock (GMT+1), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
Paris, at 48.9° north, has short summer nights, the sky never fully dark for a few weeks around the June solstice, and long winter ones in which the planets of the winter sky climb high over the city. The Seine’s bridges and quays give the most open views from the center, west down the river toward the evening sky.
The Paris Observatory, founded in 1667, keeps its telescopes at Meudon too, on the hills southwest of the city. Each October, during Le Jour de la Nuit, towns across France switch off their streetlights for a night to show what the sky looks like without them; the darkest skies within reach are in the forests and farmland of the Gâtinais, south of Fontainebleau.
Questions
Can you see stars in Paris?
Only the brightest ones, and the planets, which outshine everything in the Paris sky but the Moon. Look for a steady light along the arc the list describes: from the Champ de Mars or Montmartre, a planet in the south is easy to find.
What is the best season to watch the sky from Paris?
Autumn and winter, for long dark evenings and the bright winter stars: Orion, Sirius and Taurus. Clear nights often come with a high-pressure spell, cold and still; summer nights are warm but short and never quite dark.
Where is the Moon tonight from Paris?
The list above gives its phase, when it rises and sets on the Paris clock, and how high it gets. Click it in the sky view for where it is this minute and its distance.
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=48.86&lon=2.35&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 |
