February 25-28, 2026: Watch the waxing moon pass bright Jupiter and the Gemini Twins after sunset. A night-by-night guide to their close approach.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Venus as an Evening Star
Moon, Jupiter, and Gemini
The waxing moon approaches and passes bright Jupiter and the Gemini Twins after sunset in the east-southeastern sky.
After sunset, Jupiter is “that bright star” high in the east-southeast near Castor and Pollux, Gemini’s brightest stars. It remains the brightest starlike object in the evening sky until Venus returns. The Jovian Giant is nearing the end of retrograde — its apparent westward drift against the distant starfield. This motion occurs as faster-moving Earth passes an outer planet such as Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn, temporarily shifting our line of sight westward.
The waxing gibbous moon is approaching the Full (Worm) Moon on March 3, accompanied by a lunar eclipse visible in some phase across most of Earth, though not in Europe or Africa. In the Americas, totality occurs while the moon is low in the western sky.
Highlights
Here is what to see an hour after sunset during these four evenings:
February 25: The bright gibbous moon, 67% illuminated, is high in the south-southeast, nearly 20° to Jupiter’s upper right.
February 26: The 78%-illuminated moon stands high in the east-southeast, 4.8° above Jupiter and over 10° to the right of Castor.
February 27: The lunar orb, 86% illuminated, is over halfway from the horizon to overhead and more than 10° to Jupiter’s lower left. It is 4.1° below Pollux. Notice that the moon, Pollux, and Castor form a near-straight line.
February 28: The moon, 93% illuminated, is less than halfway up in the eastern sky and 25° to Jupiter’s lower right.
Each night, Jupiter stands in the southern sky before midnight and sets in the west-northwest more than two hours before sunrise. Depending on the date, the moon sets before Jupiter; on the 28th, it sets nearly two hours after the solar system’s largest planet.
Night by night, the moon moves eastward against the starfield by about 0.5° per hour — roughly its own diameter.
During these evenings, watch the moon approach and pass Jupiter and the Gemini Twins.
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