December 15, 2025: Before sunrise, the waning crescent moon appears near Spica in the south-southeast. Mercury lingers low in the east-southeast near Graffias, while Jupiter retrogrades in front of Gemini and Saturn is ideally placed for telescopic viewing after sundown. Uranus and Neptune are visible with binoculars under darker skies.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 7:11 a.m. CST; Sunset, 4:21 p.m. CST. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
Celestial Almanac for Sun, Moon, and Planets
Sun: The central star approaches its southern standstill or solstice point in less than a week, along with the Tropic of Capricorn point where it appears overhead at noon. From Chicago today, daylight lasts 9 hours, 10 minutes. Miami enjoys 10 hours, 32 minutes, while Anchorage has only 5 hours, 30 minutes of sunlight.
Moon: The lunar orb is visible in the southeast during morning twilight as a 17% illuminated waning crescent. Look for and photograph earthshine—sunlight reflected from Earth’s features—on the moon’s night portion. This morning the lunar orb is nearly 11° to Spica’s lower left.
Inner Planets
Mercury: The innermost planet retreats into brighter morning twilight while brightening as it goes. Mercury is in front of Scorpius, 1.2° to Graffias’ (Beta Scorpii) lower left. At 45 minutes before sunrise, use a binocular to initially locate Mercury, over 6° above the east-southeast horizon. A clear horizon, hilltop, or elevated structure improves the view.
Venus: The Morning Star is deep in bright morning twilight, rising less than 25 minutes before sunrise. It reaches superior conjunction—on the sun’s far side—in less than a month and begins its slow reappearance after sunset as the Evening Star.
Outer Planets
Mars: Heading for its conjunction with the sun next month, the Red Planet is dim and sets only 20 minutes after the sun. It is not visible.
Jupiter: Retrograding in front of Gemini, near Pollux, the Jovian Giant is in the sky nearly all night. As Venus disappears into bright sunlight, Jupiter is brighter than all the stars, including Sirius. Jupiter rises about 130 minutes after sunset. By four hours after sunset, not so late with early sunsets, it is nearly 20° up in the east-northeast and 6.5° to Pollux’s lower right. Jupiter is south after midnight and in the western sky during morning twilight, when it is over one-third of the way from the horizon to overhead.
Saturn: The Ringed Wonder is in an ideal location for telescopic observing. Through the eyepiece, the rings are edge-on—a view that occurs about every 15 years. They appear as a thin line around the planet. Find Saturn nearly halfway from the south-southeast horizon to overhead. While not as bright as Jupiter, Saturn is nearly the same brightness as Fomalhaut, about 30° to its lower right.
Uranus: Now that the moon is in the morning sky and not interfering with the dimmer planets, the Tilted World is near the Pleiades star cluster. From rural sites, Uranus is visible as a faint star. Before the telescope era, it appeared on star charts. Use a binocular to find it near 13 and 14 Tauri. Appearing as an aquamarine star, Uranus is about the same brightness as these stars.
Neptune: The solar system’s most distant planet is in the same binocular field with Saturn. Look after evening twilight ends until about five hours after sunset to view it when it is highest in the southern sky. Place the Ringed Wonder near the lower right of the binocular field. Identify stars 20, 24, 27, and 29 Piscium (Psc). Neptune, appearing as a bluish star, is to the field’s upper left and dimmer than those stars. Use averted (peripheral) vision to see it. Because it is dim, practice over multiple nights to reliably locate it.
Find the planets and the moon during the night as the shortest daylight interval approaches across the northern hemisphere.
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