Night Sky Photography -- 01-01-2026 -- Bright Winter Stars & First Moonrise Of The New Year!

Greetings & Happy New Year 2026 Y'all!

Like many folks across this wonderful world of ours, I stayed up to celebrate the New Year by counting down to midnight (12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, or EST) here in my home state of South Carolina on the United States eastern coast in North America.

After watching my neighborhood turn into a fireworks war zone for about half an hour (and in truth they continued to pop off sporadically until well after 1 a.m.) my eyes turned to the beautifully clear night sky dome overhead to see the beautiful bright stars of the Hyades Star Cluster which makes up the "horns" of the Constellation Taurus The Bull, the beautiful stars of the Constellation Orion The Hunter, and the smaller Winter Triangle asterisms -- along with a beautiful Waxing Full Moon and the planet Jupiter overhead.

I captured a good shot of all these from my front yard to share with y'all.

This is the first of what I hope will be many more night sky photographs I'll be presenting to y'all this year....God and clear skies permitting, of course.

Happy New Year!