🌌 Grand Canyon Sky Report — Night of September 24–25, 2026

Verdict: A challenging night, but the trend is your friend. Cloud cover is heavy early on, yet it steadily thins hour by hour — and by the early morning hours you're knocking on the door of usable skies. Patience will be rewarded.

☁️ Hour-by-Hour Evolution

• 20:00 – Worst hour of the night: 76% cloud cover, a 6% chance of precipitation, 15.9°C, and a light 2.5 m/s breeze. Not worth setting up yet.
• 21:00 – Clouds ease to 67%, precipitation drops to 5%, temperature falls to 15.1°C. Still mostly socked in.
• 22:00 – A turning point: precipitation hits 0% and stays there. Clouds tick up slightly to 74%, but the atmosphere is stabilizing. 14.8°C.
• 23:00 – The big improvement begins: clouds drop to 51%, wind calms to 1.5 m/s, 14.1°C.
• 00:00 – 48% cloud cover, 13.5°C, wind nearly dead at 1.4 m/s. Marginal — just above the 40% threshold.
• 01:00 – Best conditions of the night: 44% clouds, 12.9°C, calm winds. Still not "good" by the numbers, but with Bortle 2 skies, gaps in the cloud deck will reveal stunning views.

Bottom line: The sky slowly cleans up through the night. Early evening is a write-off; after midnight, watch for sucker holes and target bright objects that punch through thin cloud.

🌙 Moon & Planets

The Waxing Gibbous Moon (92–97% illuminated) is the elephant in the room — it rises at 17:21 and dominates the sky, washing out faint fuzzies. It finally sets at 04:09, offering a brief moon-free window before dawn.

• 🪐 Saturn (mag 0.34) — the night's star attraction. It transits at 00:58, riding high in the south, and its rings will tolerate some cloud interference. Look for it even through thin haze.
• ⛢ Uranus (mag 5.65) — transits at 04:24, right after moonset. A small, pale green disk — a fun challenge if the clouds cooperate in the pre-dawn.
• ☄️ ISS — one bright pass occurred last evening (20:44), so no flybys tonight to enjoy.

🎯 If the Clouds Part

With the bright Moon, skip the faint galaxies and go for high-surface-brightness targets:

• M22 (globular, mag 5.1) — a dense, bright core that holds up well.
• M24 (Star Cloud) — a huge Milky Way patch, perfect for binoculars.
• M6 & M7 — bright open clusters in Scorpius, low in the southwest early evening.
• M31 & M45 — both rising in the east; M45 (Pleiades) is a naked-eye gem even in moonlight.

🔭 Pro Tip

Grand Canyon's Bortle 2 sky is world-class — don't waste it. Set up around 23:00–00:00, let the scope cool down, and be ready to pounce on clear patches. Saturn through the gaps will be worth the wait. Dress warmly: temperatures fall steadily to ~13°C by 01:00, and the canyon can channel cool air.

Clear (or partially clear!) skies! 🌠