October 2026 Moon Phases

October 2026 has no eclipses on the calendar, but it’s a busy month for skywatchers all the same. Saturn opens the month at its best, a quiet meteor shower peaks under dark, moonless skies a few nights later, the Orionids follow under a bright Moon, and the month closes with the Hunter’s Moon. Here’s what’s happening and when.

Saturn opens the month at its brightest

Saturn reached opposition on October 4, lying directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth and staying visible all night, from sunset straight through to sunrise. It’s the closest, brightest, and largest Saturn will appear all year, and it stays easy to find in the evening sky for weeks afterward — rising a little earlier each night through the rest of October. To the naked eye it looks like a steady golden “star.” A pair of large binoculars may hint that Saturn isn’t perfectly round, while a small telescope will clearly reveal the rings, separated from the planet’s disk — though this year those rings are tilted only about 7° to our line of sight, so they’ll look more like a thin line than the wide, open rings seen in photos from a few years ago.

The Draconids peak under a dark, moonless sky

The Draconid meteor shower is a modest one — typically just 5 to 10 meteors an hour at its best — but it’s also one of the few showers best watched in the early evening rather than after midnight, since its radiant, near the head of the constellation Draco, is highest in the sky as darkness falls. It peaks the evening of October 8 into October 9, close enough to the New Moon on October 10 that there’s no moonlight at all to compete with it. The shower has produced genuine meteor storms in the past, most recently in 2011, so while no outburst is predicted for 2026, it’s always a bit of a wildcard.

The Orionids peak under a bright Moon

The Orionids — debris from Halley’s Comet, the same source as May’s Eta Aquariids — peak overnight on October 21–22, typically producing around 20 fast, often bright meteors an hour under a dark sky. This year the timing isn’t as favorable: the Moon will be a waxing gibbous, roughly 78–86% illuminated, and it washes out all but the brighter meteors for the first half of the night. The best strategy is patience — wait until the Moon sets in the hours before dawn, when Orion’s radiant is also highest in the sky, and the show improves considerably.

The Full Moon on October 26 is the Hunter’s Moon

October’s Full Moon is the Hunter’s Moon — traditionally the first full Moon after the Harvest Moon, historically marking the point when early hunters could see well enough by moonlight to track game across cleared, harvested fields ahead of winter. Like the Harvest Moon, it shares the same shallow-angle moonrise around this time of year, so it rises only slightly later each night for a few nights running rather than the usual 50 minutes. There’s no eclipse involved this time; despite the occasional “Blood Moon” headline, an eclipse and a low, reddish-looking moonrise are two different things, and this Hunter’s Moon is only the latter.