December 26, 2025: Short daylight during early winter. See the moon near Saturn, Jupiter near opposition, and which planets are hidden in sunlight during December’s sky.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 7:17 a.m. CST; Sunset, 4:26 p.m. CST. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
Solar System Almanac for Sun, Moon, and Planets
Sun: At Chicago’s latitude, daylight lasts 9 hours, 9 minutes and is slowly increasing. The latest sunrise occurs in two mornings. In comparison, at Miami’s latitude, the sun is above the horizon for 10 hours, 33 minutes, while daylight shortens to 5 hours, 30 minutes in Anchorage. The rate of change is fastest at higher latitudes, where the sun’s sunrise and sunset points, as well as its noon altitude above the horizon, shift northward more rapidly. Today, the sun is overhead at latitude 23° south, near the Tropic of Capricorn.
Moon: After sunset, the lunar orb is in the southern sky near Saturn. The evening half-full phase (First Quarter) occurs tomorrow at 1:10 p.m. Central Time. This evening, the moon is 41% illuminated. As the phase grows, moonlight washes out dimmer stars and planets, including Uranus and Neptune.
Inner Planets
Mercury: After its best morning appearance of the year, the innermost planet retreats into brighter morning twilight, rising about an hour before sunrise. It quickly moves deeper into sunlight, passing on the sun’s far side at superior conjunction on January 21st. During late February, Mercury appears low in the western sky during evening twilight with Venus.
Venus:Like Mercury, Venus is still west of the sun, meaning it rises before daybreak. This morning it rises only eight minutes before sunrise. The planet reaches superior conjunction on January 6th, after which it moves east of the sun and sets after nightfall. Venus is the Evening Star for most of 2026.
Mars: The Red Planet is east of the sun and hidden in bright sunlight, setting only 10 minutes after sunset. Mars reaches solar conjunction on January 9th. As of this writing, NASA has not announced its Mars solar-conjunction hiatus, which typically occurs when the planet is within 2° (four moon diameters) of the sun. For this apparition, that interval spans December 30th through January 15th. During this time, solar radio emissions can garble commands between mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and spacecraft near Mars. Controllers place spacecraft into housekeeping modes and suspend mission-critical communications. Mars reappears in the eastern sky during late spring 2026.
Bright Outer Planets
Jupiter: The Jovian Giant is one of two bright planets visible tonight. With Venus near the sun, Jupiter is the brightest starlike body in the sky. Through a telescope, its cloud bands and four large moons are visible, although to the unaided eye it appears as a star. The planet rises in the east-northeast after sunset and appears farther westward as the night progresses. Look for it about three hours after sundown, not so late with early sunsets. Jupiter is high in the south after midnight and lower in the east-southeast during mid-evening. During morning twilight, it is in the western sky.
Jupiter retrogrades in front of Gemini, 6.6° from Pollux, one of the Twins. This illusion occurs as Earth overtakes the more distant planet before passing between it and the sun on the night of January 10th. Jupiter has a wide conjunction with Castor, the other Twin, on January 5th.
Saturn: Tonight’s second bright planet, the Ringed Wonder, is 3.1° to the moon’s lower left. Considerably dimmer than Jupiter, Saturn is fainter than its average brightness. Through a telescope, the rings are seen nearly edge-on, like viewing the rim of a dinner plate. Because the rings reflect light away from Earth, the planet appears dimmer. Saturn sets less than four hours after sunset.
Faint Outer Planets
Uranus: The Tilted World is in the same binocular field of view with the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. Appearing as an aquamarine star through a binocular, Uranus is near the stars 13 and 14 Tauri (Tau). With moderate-sized telescopes, the planet shows a tiny globe instead of a pinpoint. With tonight’s moonlight, seeing Uranus through a binocular is still possible, although it becomes more difficult each evening.
Neptune: The solar system’s most-distant planet is in the same binocular field with Saturn, although it is over three times farther away. Even without moonlight, Neptune is a challenging sight. With the bright moon nearby, wait until the moon returns to a thinning morning crescent before attempting to find it again.
Pluto: Now classified as a dwarf planet, Pluto is immersed in bright sunlight and reaches solar conjunction on January 23rd.
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