The Sky Today on Saturday, October 10: Catch the zodiacal light

With no Moon in the sky, it’s the perfect time to look for the so-called false dawn before sunrise: the zodiacal light. | Published: October 10, 2026 Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. October 9: Dense, ancient M30 New Moon occurs at 11:50 A.M. EDT. With extra-dark skies, you’ve got a chance to spot the zodiacal light in the early-morning hours, reaching up from the eastern horizon before dawn. This faint glow is generated by sunlight glinting off dust that has accumulated along the plane of the solar system, shed by countless comets as they are heated when they near the Sun. You’ll want to look well before twilight, when the sky is darkest, and do so from a location with as little light pollution as possible. The zodiacal light will stretch up above the eastern horizon, from Leo into Cancer and into Gemini. The pyramid-shaped glow follows the ecliptic, which you can trace out using the bright planets Jupiter (in Leo) and Mars (in Cancer) in the sky. October is a great time to view the zodiacal light because the ecliptic is nearly perpendicular to the horizon. And with no Moon in the morning sky, you’ve got several days now to give observing this ethereal glow a try. Sunrise: 7:06 A.M. Sunset: 6:28 P.M. Moonrise: 7:07 A.M. Moonset: 6:12 P.M. Moon Phase: New *Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location. Early risers on October 11 can catch a stunning sight this morning as magnitude 1.1 Mars makes its way through the Beehive Cluster (M44) in central Cancer. The photographer captured this mosaic image of Mars passing through the Beehive Cluster using a Seestar S50 smartscope. Credit: Steve Elliot (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0) Rising around 1 A.M. local daylight time, Mars is already 30° high in the east by 4 A.M. If you’re observing from a particularly dark site, you may be able to see the Beehive’s stars without optical aid — they shine collectively at magnitude 3.7, well within naked-eye range. This nearby open cluster is also quite large, spanning nearly 100’ on the sky, and appears as a fuzzy glow without optical aid. It has been known since antiquity and has carried several names, including Praesepe, which is Latin for manger. Pull out binoculars or any size telescope, and you’ll get a clearer view of the Red Planet floating amid a gaggle of pinprick white and blue stars. Within 10 minutes or so, you’ll be able to note the bright, orange-hued planet’s motion through the cluster, as Mars appears to track across the sky while the more distant stars appear fixed. Make a few sketches or snap a couple of photos over the course of just an hour, and you’ll definitely see the difference. Closer to the horizon, bright Jupiter leads the constellation Leo into the sky, standing near the border the Lion shares with the Crab. Take a wide-field nightscape photograph, and you’ll be able to catch both planets in the predawn sky. Alison Klesman is senior editor of Astronomy magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.