December 8, 2025: Before sunrise, Jupiter, the moon, and Mercury gather in the morning sky. After sundown, Saturn is well-placed for telescopes while Neptune is a faint binocular target.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 7:06 a.m. CST; Sunset, 4:20 p.m. CST. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
Before Sunrise
Before sunrise, Jupiter, the moon, and Mercury are visible. Step outside an hour before daybreak. The bright gibbous moon, 83% illuminated, is over halfway up in the west-southwest. It is over 10° to Jupiter’s upper left and over 12° to the upper left of Pollux, one of the Gemini Twins.
Jupiter retrogrades in front of Gemini, to Pollux’s lower left. At this hour, it is the brightest starlike body in the sky.
As the sky brightens in the east, Mercury is nearly 10° above the southeast horizon at 45 minutes before daybreak. One day after greatest elongation, the planet lingers in this region before descending into brighter twilight. Use a binocular to initially find Mercury and the Scorpion’s claws — Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali — above it.
After Sundown
After sundown, Saturn is in a prime location for telescopic observing. Find it about halfway up in the south-southeast as darkness falls. Through a telescope, the rings are nearly edge-on — like looking at a dinner plate’s rim — and appear as a thin line across the planet. Saturn is about the same brightness as Fomalhaut, the mouth of the Southern Fish, about 30° to the Ringed Wonder’s lower right.
When the sky is fully dark, about 90 minutes after sundown and before the bright moon rises, look for Neptune through a binocular. The most distant planet in the solar system is faint in the same field of view with Saturn, although it is over three times farther from Earth. Use averted (peripheral) vision to see it as a dim, bluish star.
Jupiter rises less than three hours after sunset, below the Gemini Twins. Two hours later, the moon, 77% illuminated, is above the east-northeast horizon, over 20° to Jupiter’s lower left.
By tomorrow morning during twilight, the moon and Jupiter are in the western sky.
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