Skywatching Highlights for 2025: Top Astronomical Events

Catching the best sky watching events for the coming year 2025.

How about that eclipse in 2024? Certainly, the Great North American Eclipse of April 8^th 2024 was one for the ages, instilling the eclipse-chasing bug in many a new skywatching fan. Now, for the bad news: 2025 is a rare, totality free year, featuring only a pair of remote partial solar eclipses. The good news is, there’s lots more in store to see in the sky in 2025, with a pair of fine total lunar eclipses, Mars at its best, and lunar occultations galore. And hey, the Sun is still mighty active, and the cosmos does still owe us another fine comet.

2024: The Year in Brief

To be sure, the April eclipse was spectacular… but 2024 was almost more notable for the unpredictable. First, the Sun unleashed two epic solar storms, sending amazing aurora displays southward towards latitudes and populations of skywatchers that rarely see them. Then, Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS survived perihelion in late September, and went on to put on a fine show for northern hemisphere watchers at dusk in October. All of this transpired against a record number of rocket launches worldwide, as SpaceX and its competitors race to fill the sky with Starlink and its ilk.

Will artificial stars outnumber real ones in the coming generation? We’re differently witness to an evolving sky, as the clockwork gears unfold in the drama of the heavens above us.

The Rules

First up, some ground rules. We think of this list as a ‘best of the best’ for the year, distilled down to top events, with a little strangeness thrown in to make things unique. Think conjunctions closer than a degree, comets brighter than +6^th magnitude, etc. as a sort of ‘101 Top Astronomy Events for the Year.’

The Top 12 Events for 2025

Such is astronomy and skywatching in 2025. First, here’s a quick subjective rundown of the dozen very best skywatching events to look forward to in the coming year:

• The peak for Solar Cycle 25 continues
• Mars at opposition in January
• Venus rules the dusk sky at the start of the year, and transitions to the dawn sky
• A once a generation Major Lunar Standstill sees the Moon swinging wide north-to-south
• Saturn’s rings are edge on as seen from our Earthly vantage point
• Comet G3 ATLAS ‘may’ break negative magnitudes in January
• Two total lunar eclipses for the year worldwide
• Lunar occultations worldwide for the stars Spica, Regulus and Antares
• A rare ‘triple year’ for lunar-stellar occultations
• The Moon meets up with Saturn and Mars multiple times in 2025
• A rare, ‘smiling emoticon’ triple conjunction involving the Moon, Regulus and Venus on September 19th
• The Moon occults sections of Messier 45 (The Pleiades) on every pass for 2025

The Sun, the Seasons and the Solar Cycle in 2025

We’re just coming off of the historic solar maximum in 2024 for Solar Cycle Number 25, and the wild ride is far from over. On an 11-year period from one maxima to the next, the Sun doubtless has more in store for 2025 in terms of space weather and aurora. We’re now on a long, slow downslide towards solar minimum in 2029-2030.

The Moon in 2025

2025 is a ‘hilly’ year for the path of the Moon, as we cross what’s known as a Major Lunar Standstill. The actual node crossing for the event occurs on January 29^th. The Moon’s orbit is inclined a little over five degrees relative to the ecliptic plane. The entire orbit of our Moon is also dragged (mainly by the Sun) one revolution every 18.6-years, in what’s known as lunar nodal precession. All this means that once every 18.6 years, the Moon ‘swings wide’ in the sky, as the tilt of its orbit is applied to the Earth’s versus the ecliptic plane.

A ‘Hilly Year’

We just had the northernmost Full Moon of the decade on December 15^th, 2024, and we’re due for the southernmost Full Moon on June 11th.

The year is also rare in that a Black Moon (in the old-timey sense as the third New Moon in an astronomical season with four) occurs on August 23^rd, and the Harvest Moon nearest to the September Equinox occurs in October, on the 7^th.

Eclipses in 2025

As mentioned previously, 2025 features 4 eclipses—the minimum number that can occur in a calendar year. These are 2 total lunar and 2 partial solar eclipses, bookending two eclipse seasons in 2025:

The Inner Planets in 2025

Fleeting Mercury reaches greatest elongation six times in 2025 (3 in the dawn and 3 in the dusk) marking the best time to spy the elusive world:

• March 8^th – Mercury is 18º east (dusk)
• April 21^st – Mercury is 27º west (dawn, best for 2025)
• July 4^th – Mercury is 26º east (dusk)
• August 19^th – Mercury is 18º west (dawn)
• October 29^th – Mercury is 24º east (dusk)
• December 8^th – Mercury is 21º west (dawn)

Meanwhile, Venus is busy in 2025. The brilliant world starts off dominating the evening sky, reaching greatest elongation 47 degrees east of the Sun on January 10^th and shining at magnitude -4.5. This is the best apparition of Venus since 2017. Venus then takes the plunge towards the Sun, passing less than nine degrees north of the Sun on March 21st-22nd. This is a good time to try the challenging feat of seeing Venus near inferior conjunction… just make sure that the Sun is physically blocked from view.

Venus then goes on to a fine dawn appearance for the remainder of 2025, reaching greatest elongation 46 degrees west of the Sun on June 25^th.

The Outer Planets in 2025

The big ticket planetary event kicks off 2025, when Mars reaches opposition on January 16^th. To be sure, this opposition is part of an unfavorable cycle as the Red Planet is currently moving away from us towards aphelion on April 16^th, 2025, but noteworthy as it marks the biannual Mars observing season. At its best, Mars shines at -1.5 magnitude and presents a disk 15” across.

Beyond opposition, Mars spends most of the rest of 2025 in the evening sky, and reaches solar conjunction on January 9^th, 2026.

The Best Conjunctions and Groupings in 2025

2025 is an intriguing year for lunar-planetary meetups. First off, you have a rare chance to see all of the naked eye planets (from Mercury to Saturn) in the evening sky at once in mid-March, as Mercury briefly completes the scene.

The best planet-versus-planet pairing occurs on August 12^th with Jupiter and Venus just 54’ apart, 36 degrees from the Sun at dawn. The best planet-versus-bright star conjunction for the year happens when Venus passes 30’ north of Regulus on September 19^th, also at dawn. Incidentally, a remote region in the Siberian Arctic will actually see the 5% illuminated waning crescent Moon cover the pair simultaneously, while the rest of us will see a skewed, ‘smiley face’ emoticon grouping hanging in the dawn sky, demonstrating that perhaps the Universe does indeed have a sly sense of humor.

Weirdness and More

Well, we’re now officially a quarter of the way into the 21^st century. For fans and users of stellar cartography, 2050.0 coordinates will now slowly start to come into vogue versus 2000.0, as we inch ever closer to mid-century. It’s a strange thought, for those of us who still remember 1950.0 coordinates on star maps (and star maps in general!). Looking out of the solar system, we’re still waiting for the reclusive (and now overdue) recurrent nova T Coronae Borealis to finally pop.

Also, the white dwarf star Sirius b is now at apastron 11.5” from its brilliant primary, making this an excellent time to cross it off of your life list… the +4 and +6 magnitude double star 70 Ophiuchus also reaches maximum separation of 6.7” in 2025. Finally, will the defunct Soviet Kosmos 482 Venus mission reenter in 2025? Should we alert the Six Million Dollar Man to stand by to fight the ‘Venus Death Probe?’

Credits: It has been a wild year, on the Earth and in the sky above. We always like to say that our sky watching almanac for the coming year is the one post that takes us six months to write, and this year’s is no exception. Lots of research goes into these, and we’ve picked the brains of lots of knowledgeable observers in the process. Thanks to John Flannery at the Irish Astronomical Society, Robert Sparks, Andrew Symes, Paul Stewart, Eliot Herman, Guy Ottewell and everyone who contributed over the past year.

It’s going to be another great year for skywatching in 2025… and who knows? If the interest is out there, 2026 might see this half-a-year project grow into something bigger.

For more information, make sure to check:

• Universe Today articles on astronomy.
• The NASA official site for space news.
• Local astronomical societies and clubs for community events.

Reference: Universe Today