Planet guide
Jupiter tonight
Where Jupiter sits in tonight's sky depends on your latitude and the hour. Set a location for its altitude, direction and best viewing time.
Jupiter is a spectacular naked-eye planet — usually the second-brightest after Venus, sometimes brighter than Sirius. Even ordinary binoculars show up to four moons in a straight line beside it. That view is what made Galileo realise, in 1610, that not everything orbits Earth.
Location not set
Set a location for tonight's viewing details
Magnitude and distance are the same for everyone. Rise, set, altitude and the best hour are not — they depend entirely on your latitude and longitude.
- Rise, set and best viewing time tonight
- Altitude now and at its best
- Compass direction to face
- An altitude curve across the whole night
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What it is
Jupiter in one paragraph
A gas giant, 11 times the diameter of Earth and 318 times its mass — more mass than all the other planets combined. Its atmosphere is banded with clouds of ammonia and water; the Great Red Spot is a storm larger than Earth that has raged for at least 350 years. Over 90 known moons.
Naked eye & binoculars
How to actually see it
Any small telescope shows the equatorial cloud bands and the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Come back the next night and they'll have visibly shifted position — you're watching a miniature solar system in real time.
Through a telescope
What you'll actually see in the eyepiece
A 100–150 mm telescope reveals finer belt structure, the Great Red Spot when it faces us, and shadow transits of moons across the planet's face. Colour cameras and a stacking app can turn a few minutes of video into a beautifully detailed disc.
Key facts
Jupiter at a glance
- Distance from Sun
- 778 million km
- Diameter
- 139,820 km (11× Earth)
- Year
- 11.9 Earth years
- Moons
- 95+ known