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Skies by city / United States

The night sky over Chicago

Every sky on this page is computed for Chicago'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 Chicago

Moon

Last quarter

56% illuminated

Moonrise / moonset

9:27 PM – 12:49 PM

Up around 21:00 local

  • M45 — Pleiades18° up
  • M31 — Andromeda59° up
  • M2513° up
  • M3982° up

Computed for October 2, 2026. Local time is estimated from Chicago's longitude rather than a timezone database — accurate to within about an hour almost everywhere.

Print-ready PDF, free, drawn for these exact coordinates. We'll email it to you.

We send the poster either way — the box above is only for the occasional note, and never anything else.

The sky from 42° north

From Chicago the north celestial pole, marked by Polaris, stands 42° above the horizon. Over a year 87% 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, Ara, Musca, Tucana, Volans, and 10 more stay below Chicago's horizon permanently.

Geometric horizon, at 41.88°, -87.62°. 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 Chicago does — however far away they are.

Near Chicago

Close enough that the sky overhead is near enough identical on any given night.

Nights worth naming

Each one opens the free generator with Chicago 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.