Live sky chart · 41.01° N 28.98° E

Istanbul Sky

What is above Istanbul right now? Every star, planet and the Moon on this chart is computed in your browser, not looked up: for Istanbul, or for where you are if you choose to share your location.

Chosen time21:0024 September 2026 · Istanbul time (UTC+3)

Your position is rounded to 0.1° (about 11 km) and used only in this tab: it is never sent, saved or put in the link, so a shared link opens Istanbul’s sky at the same moment.

Zenith in the centre, horizon at the rim. North is up and east is on the left, as when you lie on your back with your head to the north. Tap a star to identify it, or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to move between named objects; hold Shift to stop at every star.

DateTime

Time of night

Reduced motion is on: use the slider and step buttons instead of playback.

Light pollutionBortle 1 · Excellent dark-sky site

Naked-eye limit: 7.6–8.0

Roughly 19,000 stars above the horizon now, the most of any class on Bortle’s scale.

Stars to magnitude 5 are counted on the chart; fainter ones are estimated from Hipparcos whole-sky counts, ignoring the haze that hides many of them near the horizon.

A sky this dark also shows stars fainter than magnitude 5, which this chart does not draw.

Constellation figuresTurkish names

Selected object · Star

Polaris

α UMi · Ursa Minor

Turkish name Demirkazık

“Iron stake”: the fixed star the rest of the sky turns around.

Also called: Kutup Yıldızı, Kuzey Yıldızı

TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük, entry “Demirkazık; Kutup Yıldızı”

Altitude: 40.9°
Azimuth: 1° N
Magnitude: 2.02
B−V colour index: 0.60
Designation: HR 424

Never sets from Istanbul: it circles the pole all night.

Up now

Brightest objects above the horizon, and the stars behind the Turkish names. Choose one to see it on the chart.

Find by name

Moon

Waxing gibbous

Illuminated: 96%

Next full Moon: 26 September, ≈19:52
Next new Moon: 10 October, ≈18:50

Turkish names in the sky

Traditional names for the stars and planets, each one found in the TDK dictionary. Names we could not source are left out rather than guessed.

Demirkazık
“Iron stake”: the fixed star the rest of the sky turns around.
Up now · 41° N
TDK “Demirkazık; Kutup Yıldızı”
Ülker
The Pleiades, a star cluster in Taurus.
Below the horizon now
TDK “Ülker”
Yedikardeş
“Seven siblings”: the seven bright stars of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. TDK marks the word as regional, collected from dialects.
Up now · 21° NNW
TDK “Yedikardeş”
Çoban Yıldızı
“Shepherd’s star”: the planet Venus.
Below the horizon now
TDK “Çoban Yıldızı”
Merih
Another Turkish name for Mars, from Arabic.
Below the horizon now
TDK “Merih”
Müşteri
Another Turkish name for Jupiter, from Arabic.
Below the horizon now
TDK “Müşteri”
Zühal
Another Turkish name for Saturn.
Up now · 17° ESE
TDK “Zühal”
Utarit
Another Turkish name for Mercury.
Below the horizon now
TDK “Utarit”

Tonight over Istanbul

Rise and set times for the night from noon to noon, Istanbul time. 24 September → 25 September 2026

Astronomical night: 20:30 – 05:22

Tonight over Istanbul, 24 September → 25 September 2026
Rises	Sets	Up in darkness
06:54	18:58	—
17:52	05:20	Yes
08:41	19:39	No
10:09	19:49	No
01:27	16:14	Yes
03:13	17:15	Yes
19:27	07:47	Yes

How this chart is computed

Sidereal time and the altitude–azimuth conversion follow the US Naval Observatory’s formulas. The Sun and planets come from JPL’s approximate Keplerian elements (valid 1800–2050), the same code the Observatory room uses. The Moon uses Paul Schlyter’s method with its perturbation terms; phase names follow USNO’s definitions and the lit fraction his formula. The Sun rises and sets 50′ below the horizon, as USNO defines it; for stars and planets we use 34′ of refraction, USNO’s standard value. At the moments we checked on 24 September 2026, the Sun, Moon and planets came within about 0.1° of JPL Horizons, sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset were within a minute of USNO’s times, and the principal lunar phases of September–October 2026 within seven minutes. If you share your location, the same formulas run for your coordinates and time zone.

Stars come from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue, 5th edition: everything to magnitude 5, over the whole sky. Proper motion, nutation and aberration are ignored, and the sky is drawn without atmospheric refraction. The light-pollution meter estimates stars fainter than magnitude 5 from the Hipparcos catalogue’s whole-sky counts. The constellation figures are simplified for this page. Turkish names appear only where a TDK dictionary entry confirms them; anything we could not source is left out rather than guessed.

This research has made use of the VizieR catalogue access tool, CDS, Strasbourg, France.

USNO: sidereal time USNO: altitude and azimuth USNO: rise and set definitions USNO: phases of the Moon JPL: approximate planet positions Schlyter: computing planetary positions Yale Bright Star Catalogue (VizieR V/50)Hipparcos Catalogue (VizieR I/239)ESA: Hipparcos catalogue summary IAU Catalog of Star Names IAU constellations TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük Bortle dark-sky scale JPL Horizons (cross-check)VizieR (CDS)