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Skies by city / South Africa

The night sky over Johannesburg

Every sky on this page is computed for Johannesburg'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 Johannesburg

Moon

Waning gibbous

60% illuminated

Moonrise / moonset

12:23 AM – 9:45 AM

Up around 21:00 local

  • M7 — Ptolemy’s Cluster42° up
  • M6 — Butterfly Cluster38° up
  • M24 — Milky Way patch43° up
  • M2547° up

Computed for October 2, 2026. Local time is estimated from Johannesburg'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 26° south

From Johannesburg the south celestial pole stands 26° above the horizon — the southern sky has no bright pole star to mark it. Over a year 95% of the celestial sphere clears that horizon; the rest never does, at any hour or season.

Never sets
Musca, Volans, Chamaeleon, Apus, Mensa, and Octans circle the pole all night, every night of the year.
Never rises
Ursa Minor stays below Johannesburg's horizon permanently.

Geometric horizon, at -26.20°, 28.05°. 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 Johannesburg does — however far away they are.

Near Johannesburg

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

Nights worth naming

Each one opens the free generator with Johannesburg 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.