Skies by city / China
The night sky over Beijing
Every sky on this page is computed for Beijing's own coordinates — the stars genuinely above the horizon, how high each one stands, and the moon's real phase and position. Not a stock star field with a place name printed on it.
Tonight over Beijing
Moon
Last quarter
51% illuminated
Moonrise / moonset
10:30 PM – 1:31 PM
Up around 21:00 local
- M45 — Pleiades13° up
- M31 — Andromeda55° up
- M24 — Milky Way patch16° up
- M2517° up
Computed for October 3, 2026. Local time is estimated from Beijing's longitude rather than a timezone database — accurate to within about an hour almost everywhere.
The sky from 40° north
From Beijing the north celestial pole, marked by Polaris, stands 40° above the horizon. Over a year 88% of the celestial sphere clears that horizon; the rest never does, at any hour or season.
- Never sets
- Draco, Cepheus, Camelopardalis, Ursa Minor, and Cassiopeia circle the pole all night, every night of the year.
- Never rises
- Pavo, Dorado, Musca, Tucana, Volans, Chamaeleon, and 9 more stay below Beijing's horizon permanently.
Geometric horizon, at 39.91°, 116.39°. A figure counts as circumpolar only when all of it clears the pole distance, and hills, haze and city light will all take more of the sky than this arithmetic does.
Cities that share this sky
Circumpolar stars are fixed by latitude alone, so these see the same constellations never set as Beijing does — however far away they are.
- Ankarasame latitude
- Philadelphiasame latitude
- Denver0.2° apart
- Valencia0.4° apart
- Madrid0.5° apart
Nights worth naming
Each one opens the free generator with Beijing and that date already set — change either, or keep it and save the picture.
Looking for a different night — a birthday, an anniversary, the day you met? The free generator takes any date and any place, not just the ones listed here. For the moon on its own, which looked the same from everywhere on Earth that night, start from the moon phase calendar.