May 2026 starts with a Full Moon, ends with a Full Moon, and brings a few lovely highlights in between ✨ 🌕 May 1 — Full Flower Moon May begins with the Flower Moon — the Full Moon traditionally named after all the blooming happening in spring. This one is also a Micromoon, so it may look a tiny bit smaller than usual. ☄️ May 6 — Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks This shower is created by dust from Halley’s Comet and can bring up to 50 meteors per hour. The Moon will be 83% illuminated, so its bright light may wash out some meteors. Still worth a try — especially if you can hide the Moon behind a tree, hill, or building. 🌑 May 16 — New Moon No moonlight means darker skies — perfect for deep-sky observing. It’s also a great moment to wrap up galaxy season and enjoy those faint fuzzy beauties before summer objects fully take over. Look for the Sunflower Galaxy, the Black Eye Galaxy, M106, or the Cat’s Eye Galaxy. ✨ May 20 — A lovely lineup in Gemini After sunset, Gemini puts on a small but very pretty show: Venus shines near the open star cluster M35, while Jupiter, Pollux, and the thin crescent Moon gather nearby. Easy naked-eye sight with bonus points for binocular observers. 🌕 May 31 — Blue Moon May ends with another Full Moon — a Blue Moon, meaning the second Full Moon in one calendar month. It’s also a Micromoon and the smallest Full Moon of 2026. Sadly, it won’t actually be blue… astronomy names do love a plot twist. Save this for your May sky plans — and don’t forget to look up 👀✨

May 2026 is especially interesting because it sits at a transition point between spring and early summer skies, meaning observers get a mix of bright seasonal constellations and fading winter-spring deep-sky objects. This makes it a kind of “double window” month: you can still catch rich galaxies like those in Virgo and Coma Berenices while also starting to see the Milky Way’s summer structure rising later at night.