Winter 2025-6 Sky

From the photographer: “I photographed this panorama about an hour after midnight on 16th December 2025 from near Çobankaya, a 50-meter-tall granite outcrop, which is visible at the right edge of the picture. This was the place I spent a couple hours 2 nights earlier for Geminids before the clouds rolled in, hence the meteor show was cut short.

When the clouds cleared again after dropping 10 cm of fresh snow, I wanted to go back there for the winter scenery. Uludağ National Park is set around Uludağ, the mountain, which rises more than 2500 meters above sea level and is just a 35-km drive from home in Bursa, so it is easy for me to visit frequently.

This look at south finds all the prominent constellations and bright stars of the winter shining above the winter scenery, with the relatively fainter Milky Way of winter stretching above the forest road. Of course, Jupiter is the extra luminary of winter 2025-26, blazing just south of Pollux and Castor in Gemini. It is not far from its best for the season, approaching its opposition just a few days after the new year, on the night of 9-10th January 2026.”