Don’t Miss These Night Sky Spectacles on Sept 11–12, 2025: Meteor Shower, Auroras & Planet Parade

Late August 2025 brings wonderfully dark night skies thanks to the Moon’s phase. August 23 was a rare “Black Moon”, so evenings around Aug 27–30 have had little moonlight ts2.tech. By this weekend the Moon is only about 7–8 days old, setting around midnight and leaving most of the night moonless ts2.tech. These dark conditions are ideal for spotting faint meteors, the Milky Way, and other dim celestial sights without glare ts2.tech.

Mid-to-late August means the Perseid meteor shower is still active, even though its peak on August 12–13 has passed ts2.tech. The Perseids officially continue through August 23 ts2.tech, so on the nights of August 20 and 21, 2025 you may still catch a few “shooting stars” each hour streaking across the sky. In a dark sky with no Moon, the Perseids can normally produce up to 50–100 meteors per hour at their peak under ideal conditions ts2.tech. However, this year a bright Moon washed out many of the fainter meteors during the peak ts2.tech. “Instead, you’re probably going to see 10 to 20 per hour or fewer, and that’s because we have a bright Moon in the sky washing out the fainter meteors,” explained Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, ahead of the peak ts2.tech. The good news is that by August 20–21 the Moon is a thin waning crescent – effectively no moonlight interference ts2.tech. This gives darker skies and a fighting chance to spot remaining Perseids. You might see on the order of just a few meteors per hour, especially in the late-night to pre-dawn hours when Earth is plowing head-on into the meteor stream ts2.tech.