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What's in the Sky in May 2027: Moon, Planets, Meteors and What to Photograph

By Still DarkPublished Oct 29, 2026Updated Oct 29, 202615 min read

May 2027 is a month for meteors and the Milky Way. If you ask what's in the sky in May 2027, start with the Eta Aquariid meteor shower. It peaks on the morning of May 6, a few hours before new Moon, so the sky is dark. The same moonless mornings are the first good ones of the year for the Milky Way core from mid-northern latitudes. In the evening, Jupiter and Mars are in the west, and the Moon passes the Beehive cluster, Jupiter, Mars and Regulus between May 11 and 13. Mercury has a good evening showing late in the month. The Flower Moon on May 20 occults Antares the next night, seen from South America. Before dawn, Venus passes 0.6° from Saturn on May 7, low in the east.

What's in the sky in May 2027, night by night

Times are UTC, so convert to your local time. US Eastern Daylight Time is UTC−4 and Pacific Daylight Time is UTC−7, so events after about 19:00 UTC fall on the previous calendar evening in the Americas. Separations are geocentric, and the Moon's parallax changes them by up to a degree depending on where you stand.

The May 2027 full Moon and the dark window

New Moon on May 6 (10:58 UTC, 6:58 am EDT), first quarter on the 13th (04:44 UTC), full on the 20th (10:59 UTC, 6:59 am EDT, 3:59 am PDT), last quarter on the 28th (13:58 UTC). The full Moon is the Flower Moon. It's in Libra and rises around sunset on the evenings of May 19 and 20. Perigee is on the 9th at 227,816 miles and apogee on the 25th at 251,532 miles, so the full Moon is at an average distance and isn't a supermoon.

The dark window. At mid-northern latitudes the Milky Way core is up from about midnight until dawn in early May. The Moon stays out of those hours from about May 1 to May 13. In the first few days the waning crescent rises an hour or less before dawn. After first quarter the Moon sets later each night, and by about the 16th it's up for the whole of the core's time. Evenings are Moon-free from May 1 to about the 9th. From the 27th the core rises around 10 pm and has two to three hours before the waning Moon rises after 1 am, but it's still low then.

Planets visible in May 2027

Mercury is an evening object for the second half of the month. It passed superior conjunction on April 28 and reaches greatest eastern elongation (22.9°) on May 28. From 40° N it stands about 11° up in the west-north-west 45 minutes after sunset from May 20 to the end of the month, and sets nearly two hours after the Sun. It's brightest early in the run, magnitude −0.2 on May 20, +0.4 at elongation and +0.8 on May 31. Look from May 18 onward, with binoculars first. From the southern hemisphere this is a poor showing: Mercury is only about 6° up 45 minutes after sunset.

Venus is low in the east before dawn at magnitude −3.9, with elongation shrinking from 27° to 20° on the way to superior conjunction on August 12. From 40° N it rises less than an hour before the Sun, so you need a flat eastern horizon. On May 7 it passes 0.6° from Saturn. From mid-northern latitudes the pair is only 2–3° up in bright twilight 45 minutes before sunrise. From the southern hemisphere it's about 15° up and an easy binocular pair.

Mars is in Leo in the evening, fading from magnitude +0.3 to +0.8 as its disc shrinks from 8.7″ to 7.1″. That's too small for useful detail in a small telescope. It passes 1.2° north of Regulus on May 14–15, the orange planet beside the blue-white star. From 40° N Mars sets around 3 am at the start of the month and 1:30 am at the end.

Jupiter is the bright object in the west after dark, magnitude −2.1 to −1.9 with a disc of 37″ to 34″. It moves from Cancer into Leo on May 10 and sets around 2:40 am on May 1 and before 1 am by the 31st. Its moons and belts are still worth a telescope early in the evening, before it gets low. The Moon passes 1.3° south of it on May 12.

Saturn (+0.7, Pisces) is back in the morning sky after its April 7 conjunction. From 40° N it rises about 40 minutes before the Sun on May 1 and two hours before by the 31st. Use Venus to find it on the 7th. Uranus is at conjunction with the Sun on May 27 and not visible. Neptune, in Pisces, is a telescope object low in the east before dawn.

Meteor showers

The Eta Aquariids are the shower of the month. They come from dust left by Halley's comet. The International Meteor Organization (IMO) predicts the peak for May 6 at 09:00 UTC (5 am EDT, 2 am PDT) with a zenithal hourly rate of 50. The shower is active from April 19 to May 28, and rates are usually above 30 between May 3 and 10. In 2027 the peak is about two hours before new Moon, so the Moon is 0.2% lit and below the horizon. Fred Espenak's almanac gives May 5, 14h UTC. Watching on the mornings of May 5, 6 and 7 covers both.

The radiant, near the Water Jar in Aquarius, rises in the east around 2:30–3 am local daylight time at 40° N. That leaves about two hours before dawn, and the radiant is still low at first light. From mid-northern latitudes the American Meteor Society expects 10–15 meteors an hour at best from a dark site. The shower is better from the southern hemisphere and the tropics, where nights are longer and the radiant gets higher before dawn. The IMO notes that useful counts come from south of about 40° N. Eta Aquariids are fast, at 66 km/s. While the radiant is low, the few meteors you see tend to be long ones that cross much of the sky. The meteor shower guide covers the method.

The minor Eta Lyrids peak around May 11 at about 3 an hour. June has no major shower. The next is the Southern Delta Aquariids, peaking on July 31 with a ZHR of about 25.

Conjunctions and close approaches

• May 7, Venus–Saturn, 0.6°, morning. The closest planet pairing of the month, but low in twilight from the north. Venus is about 70 times brighter than Saturn. Look 45 minutes before sunrise with binoculars, then use a 200–300 mm lens. Framing and exposure are in the conjunction guide.
• May 11, Moon–Beehive, evening. A 38% crescent in Cancer passes 0.6° from the Beehive (M44) at 03:58 UTC on the 12th. From the Americas the Moon sits 1–2° from the cluster after dusk on the 11th, high in the west. Bracket for the cluster stars and the bright Moon.
• May 12, Moon–Jupiter, 1.3°, evening. Closest at about 22:00 UTC, in daylight for the Americas and at dusk for Europe, where the pair is about 2° apart. By dusk in the Americas the Moon is 2.5–4° east of Jupiter. An occultation happens only over the far southern Pacific Ocean, close to Antarctica.
• May 13, Moon–Mars–Regulus, evening. The 56% Moon sits 3–5° from Regulus and Mars, with Mars and Regulus 1.4° apart. All three fit a 135 mm frame.
• May 14–15, Mars–Regulus, 1.2°, evening. Mars at +0.5 and Regulus at +1.4, an easy color comparison in binoculars or at 200 mm.
• May 20–21, Moon–Antares, night. The day-after-full Moon occults Antares from Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela between 08:28 and 10:08 UTC, and from French Polynesia, Kiribati and the Cook Islands earlier. From western North America after midnight the pair is about 1° apart, and from the eastern US about 1–2°. The planets guide covers telescope views of the planets.

The Milky Way core and the May constellations

The Milky Way core. May is when the core becomes a practical target from mid-northern latitudes. At 40° N, in local daylight time near the middle of your time zone, the galactic center rises around midnight on May 1, 11 pm on the 15th and 10 pm on the 31st. It's highest, about 21° up in the south, at 4 am on May 1, 3:10 am on the 15th and 2 am on the 31st. Early in the month it reaches that height just as astronomical twilight starts, so mid-May gives the most dark time with the core well up. From 30° N it reaches 31°, and from 34° N (Los Angeles) 27°. From the UK and northern Europe the core stays below about 10° and in twilight, so May isn't the month there. The best mornings are May 1–13, and the Milky Way guide covers the hour-by-hour plan. The core is still low, so a panorama of the arch from the south-east to Cygnus works well. Use the NPF rule for the exposure time.

From the southern hemisphere May is one of the best months of the year. At 35° S the core rises around 7:30 pm at the start of the month, passes almost overhead around 3 am, and the nights are long.

Constellations. At 10 pm mid-month from 40° N, Leo is in the west with Jupiter and Mars. Virgo is due south with Spica, and Boötes and Arcturus are high in the south-east. Ursa Major is nearly overhead. Hercules and Vega are rising in the east, and Scorpius with Antares clears the south-eastern horizon by about 10 pm. Galaxy season continues. The Virgo cluster is on the meridian, and M51, M101 and M81/M82 are high in the north. They need the May 1–9 dark evenings and a telescope or a 300 mm-plus lens. The globular cluster M13 in Hercules is well placed after midnight. From the southern hemisphere, Crux and Alpha and Beta Centauri are high in the south in the evening, and Scorpius rises in the east. Pick a dark site for all of these.

Sun, twilight and short nights

The nights get short in May. In New York the Sun sets at 19:52 EDT on May 1 and 20:20 on May 31, and sunrise moves from 05:55 to 05:28. Astronomical night shrinks from about 6½ hours (21:37–04:08) to just over 5 (22:21–03:25). In Los Angeles full darkness runs 21:09–04:30 PDT on May 1 and 21:40–04:00 on May 31. In London sunset moves from 20:23 to 21:07 BST, and after about May 22 the Sun no longer gets 18° below the horizon, so there's no full astronomical darkness until about July 21. There are no clock changes in May. ISS passes come in evening or morning runs that depend on your latitude. Check Sky Events for the current run and the ISS guide for the method.

What to photograph in May 2027

1. Eta Aquariids, mornings of May 5–7. Point a wide lens about 40° up and 30–45° to either side of the radiant, at the darkest part of the sky. Shoot continuous frames from when the radiant rises until twilight, at f/2.8 or faster and ISO 1600–3200, then pick out the frames with meteors. The meteor shower guide has the settings.
2. The Milky Way core, any morning May 1–13. Shoot the core over a south-facing foreground in the two hours before astronomical dawn. If you'll be up for the meteors anyway, frame the core and the radiant direction in the same session. See the Milky Way guide and the panorama guide.
3. Mercury at dusk, May 18–31. Mercury 11° up over a western skyline in deep blue twilight. Use 85–200 mm and 1–2 s at ISO 400 on a tripod, starting 30 minutes after sunset.

FAQ

Sources and further reading

• Fred Espenak, Astropixels — Sky Event Almanac 2027 (GMT) (Moon phases, perigee and apogee, Moon–planet separations, Venus–Saturn, Mercury elongation, Uranus conjunction).
• US Naval Observatory — Phases of the Moon and Sun and Moon rise/set for one day (phase times cross-checked; New York and London sunrise and sunset).
• International Meteor Organization — Meteor Shower Calendar 2027 (Eta Aquariid and Eta Lyrid activity, peak times and rates).
• American Meteor Society — Viewing the Eta Aquariid meteor shower (rates from the northern hemisphere).
• Dominic Ford, In-The-Sky.org — Lunar occultation of Antares, 21 May 2027, Lunar occultation of Jupiter, 12 May 2027 and Mercury at greatest elongation east (visibility regions, UTC spans, magnitudes).
• NASA JPL — DE440 planetary ephemeris (planet magnitudes, disc sizes, elongations, constellations, twilight and Milky Way core times, computed with the Skyfield library).