What is the bright star in the east before sunrise? Late 2026, date by date

Before sunrise in late October 2026, the brilliant "star" in the east to south-east is Jupiter, with fainter, orange Mars just above it. From early November Venus takes over: far brighter, low in the east-south-east at first and a little higher every morning through December.

The heights and directions below are for 45 minutes before sunrise in New York, London and Bengaluru unless I say otherwise, and Bengaluru is on the list because I live there. I ran the numbers through Orbit's engine, the astronomy inside my Mac app, on 20 October 2026, with a sample spot-checked against NASA JPL's Horizons. They come from the maths, not from me standing in a field at 5 AM.

What is the bright star in the east this morning?

For the rest of October it's Jupiter, about halfway up the sky in the south-east (in the east from Bengaluru) and brighter than any star. The fainter orange dot about 8 degrees above it (a little under a fist at arm's length) is Mars, and the white star below it is Regulus, the brightest star in Leo.

There's no Venus yet, because it passes between Earth and the Sun on 24 October (EarthSky). On the 25th it rises after the Sun in New York and London, and in Bengaluru it beats the Sun by 8 minutes, which does nobody any good in that glare.

From New York, Venus is 7 degrees up 45 minutes before sunrise on 5 November, 18 on the 15th and 27 on 1 December, when it rises three and a half hours before the Sun. Not bad for a planet that was rising after it five weeks earlier. It tops out at 29 degrees in mid-December, against about 24 from London and 35 from Bengaluru.

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A dawn sky facing east over dark hills, with the compass points NE, E and SE along the bottom. Low in the east-south-east a bright dot labelled Venus sits beside a fainter star labelled Spica, a thin crescent labelled Moon · 15% is higher up to the right, and a star labelled Arcturus is to the left.

Mars and Jupiter, meanwhile, swing round to the south as the weeks go by. By mid-November they're high in the south at dawn from New York and London and nearly overhead from Bengaluru, and they pass 1.2 degrees apart on 15 and 16 November (Mars and Jupiter's close pass), a couple of mornings before the Leonid meteor shower peaks, its meteors fanning out from the same part of the sky. By 20 December they've moved on to the south-west and west at dawn, so by then the bright one in the east is Venus everywhere.

In October and November, if your bright star is in the south-south-west to south-west and twinkling hard, it's Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, not a planet. From Bengaluru, a fainter one lower down in the south is Canopus.

The bright star in the eastern sky, by date and city

If you're not sure which way east is, it's roughly where the Sun came up yesterday. Heights are in degrees above the horizon, and a fist held at arm's length covers about 10.

Morning	City, time to look	Brightest in the eastern half of the sky	Also up
25 Oct	New York, 6:33 AM	Jupiter, 54° SE	Mars 61° SE, orange and fainter; Venus rises after the Sun
25 Oct	London, 5:56 AM	Jupiter, 48° SE	Mars 54° SSE
25 Oct	Bengaluru, 5:26 AM	Jupiter, 55° E	Mars 63° ENE
5 Nov	New York, 5:46 AM	Venus, 7° ESE, just back	Spica beside it; crescent Moon 31° SE; Jupiter and Mars about 60° SSE
5 Nov	London, 6:15 AM	Venus, 6° ESE	Crescent Moon 29° SE; Jupiter 52° SSE, Mars 54° S
5 Nov	Bengaluru, 5:29 AM	Venus, 7° ESE	Spica beside it; crescent Moon 38° E; Jupiter 65° E, Mars 69° ENE
15 Nov	New York, 5:57 AM	Venus, 18° ESE	Spica 1.5° away; Mercury 8° ESE; Jupiter and Mars 1.2° apart, 63° S
15 Nov	London, 6:33 AM	Venus, 16° SE	Mercury 8° ESE; Jupiter and Mars 52° S
15 Nov	Bengaluru, 5:33 AM	Venus, 18° ESE	Mercury 6° ESE; Jupiter and Mars 75° E, nearly overhead
1 Dec	New York, 6:15 AM	Venus, 27° SE	Mercury 6° ESE; Spica 28° SE; Jupiter and Mars about 60° SSW
1 Dec	London, 6:58 AM	Venus, 23° SE	Mercury 6° SE; Jupiter and Mars about 47° SW
1 Dec	Bengaluru, 5:40 AM	Venus, 30° ESE	Half Moon 82° ESE; Mercury 6° ESE; Spica 34° ESE; Jupiter and Mars overhead
20 Dec	New York, 6:31 AM	Venus, 28° SE	Spica 36° SSE; Mars 52° SW, Jupiter 47° WSW
20 Dec	London, 7:18 AM	Venus, 23° SSE	Mars 40° SW, Jupiter 35° WSW
20 Dec	Bengaluru, 5:51 AM	Venus, 35° ESE	Spica 52° SE; Mars 79° W, Jupiter 69° W

The clocks go back in the middle of all this (the UK on 25 October, the US on 1 November), and the times above allow for it. Times can shift by a minute, and heights are for the city centre. As a check, Horizons puts Venus 26.8 degrees up over New York at 6:15 AM on 1 December, and Orbit's engine says 26.9.

Is the bright star in the east Venus, the morning star?

From early November to the end of the year, yes, though from London it drifts round to the south-south-east by late December. After the Moon, nothing in the dawn sky outshines it; NASA ranks Venus the third brightest object in our sky after the Sun and the Moon (NASA). Its clouds help it bounce back about 70% of the sunlight that reaches it (EarthSky).

By JPL's figures Venus is magnitude −4.9 on 1 December and Jupiter −2.2. Smaller numbers are brighter, and every 5 steps is exactly 100 times (Chandra X-ray Center), so that gap of 2.7 makes Venus about twelve times brighter than Jupiter. It's at its brightest in late November.

Ancient sky-watchers took Venus at dawn and Venus at dusk for two different objects, a morning star and an evening star (that's on the same NASA page). This morning-star spell is a long one: Venus is farthest from the Sun on 3 January 2027 and keeps to the dawn sky until about June 2027 (EarthSky).

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A pre-dawn sky facing east over dark hills, compass points NE, E and SE along the bottom and thin constellation lines between the stars. A bright dot labelled Venus stands well above the hills a little right of east, a star labelled Spica sits above it to the right, a dimmer dot labelled Mercury is close to the hills below, and a star labelled Arcturus is off to the left.

Spica, Virgo's brightest star, sits within about 2 degrees of Venus from 4 to 21 November and only 1.2 degrees from it on 8 to 10 November. Mercury turns up underneath in mid to late November, farthest from the Sun, about 20 degrees, on 20 to 21 November (EarthSky). On the 15th it's only 8 degrees up from New York and London at the 45-minute mark, so you'll want a flat eastern horizon and no tower blocks in the way.

What is the bright star next to the Moon this morning?

These are the Moon's dawn meetings, 45 minutes before sunrise, seen from New York unless I say otherwise. The gaps change by a degree or more between cities, because the Moon is close enough that where you stand on Earth shifts it against the stars.

• 2 November: the Moon, 43% lit, sits 1.9 degrees from Mars, high in the south-south-east, with Jupiter 6.6 degrees away.
• 3 November: the Moon is 2 degrees from Regulus. From Bengaluru it's only 1.1 degrees from Jupiter, in the east, a few hours after covering it (times).
• 7 November: a 4% crescent, 1.5 degrees from Venus with Spica 2.5 degrees off, but only 8 degrees up in the east-south-east. Bengaluru has it higher, 15 degrees up. Binoculars help.
• 30 November: a Moon about 60% lit, 2.3 degrees from Jupiter, with Regulus and Mars close by, high in the south-south-west.
• 4 and 5 December: a thinning crescent 3.8 degrees from Spica, then 7 to 8 degrees from Venus the next morning.
• 27 and 28 December: the Moon passes Jupiter and then Mars, but at dawn they're in the south-west to west-south-west, not the east.

BBC Sky at Night Magazine has the Moon beside Mars and Jupiter on the same nights in early November, late November and late December.

How to tell a planet from a star, a plane or the ISS

A star is so far away that it's a pinpoint, and moving air bends its light about, so it twinkles; a planet shows a tiny disc whose wobbles cancel out (EarthSky). Anything low can twinkle, because you're looking through more air, so try the test on lights a fist or two up.

In these months brightness gives the rest away: Venus outshines every star by a long way, and Jupiter beats even Sirius (magnitude −1.4 against Jupiter's −2.0 to −2.3). Mars is orange and only about as bright as the brighter stars (magnitude +0.9, improving to +0.1 by 20 December). From a city, Bengaluru included, the glow washes out most stars, so what gets through at dawn is mostly planets and a few of the brightest stars.

If it blinks, it has a pilot. Airliners carry flashing red or white lights, plus a steady red light on the left wingtip and a green one on the right (both links go to the US rules).

A steady light that crosses the sky in a few minutes is most likely the space station, which NASA says "does not have flashing lights or change direction" (NASA). A full pass takes about 10 minutes from horizon to horizon, and the station can fade out halfway across as it slides into Earth's shadow, which is also why you only see it near dawn and dusk. Orbit for Mac can put a notice on your screen five minutes before a visible pass ("ISS rises in 5 minutes"); it's off until you switch on ISS Passes under Alerts, and the ISS alerts guide has the rest.

What is the bright star in the east tonight (or in the west)?

After dark, the steady "star" in the east and south-east is Saturn, magnitude +0.4 to +0.7. From New York it's in the east-south-east at dusk through November, the south-east by 1 December and the south-south-east by 20 December. It's highest in the south, 50 degrees up, around 11 PM in late October and 6:30 PM by late December (from Bengaluru it climbs to 78 degrees). Later in the night Sirius rises in the east-south-east, twinkling hard, and from mid-November Jupiter and Mars come up in the east-north-east before midnight in New York and London.

If you're looking west after sunset instead, no bright planet is there in November and December 2026, because Venus leaves the evening sky on 24 October. Low in the west in late October and early November, the orange star is Arcturus (14 degrees up from New York and 19 from London 45 minutes after sunset on the 25th, lower each evening). The other bright one is Vega, high in the west, 61 degrees up from New York on 15 November and down to 37 in the west-north-west by 20 December. From Bengaluru, Vega stays in the north-west, and the bright star in the west is Altair, 60 degrees up on 15 November and 24 by 20 December.

The morning planets on your Mac's desktop

Both pictures in this post were drawn by Orbit, my Mac app, in the version that's on sale. It puts the real sky over your city behind your desktop icons, worked out on your Mac and redrawn once a minute (how a live wallpaper works on a Mac). Right-click the Moon in the menu bar, set Facing to East and switch on Labels on the Sky (it's off at first), and it names the planets in gold, the brightest stars, the Moon and the compass points.

It won't write constellation names on the sky, and star names fade as dawn brightens while planet names hang on, so from London 45 minutes before sunrise on 1 December it names Venus and Mercury and leaves the stars unlabelled. Pick one of 13 cities or use your own location. Orbit is $6.99 once (₹699 in India), no subscription, for macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon and Intel.