April Night Sky: 8 Constellations & Their Brightest Stars
From famous Ursa Major to giant Hydra, the April night sky offers a star pattern for everyone! In this guide, we’ve picked 8 constellations that are best seen this month. Choose to stick with the brightest, most recognizable ones — or challenge yourself with the harder-to-spot constellations. To make your stargazing easier, use the free Star Walk 2 app and find any constellation in the sky. Let’s get started!
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Constellations best seen in April
To see the constellations listed below, look at the sky at about 9 p.m. local time. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, gaze above the southern horizon. In the Southern Hemisphere, face north. The free astronomy app Star Walk 2 will help you easily locate any constellation or star in your sky.
Note that constellations are listed according to the brightness — from the brightest to the faintest:
- ☆☆☆ means the constellation is very bright and easy to see.
- ☆☆ means that the constellation is moderately bright and can be seen with some effort.
- ☆ means you might need the app to help you find it.
Leo
- Brightness: ☆☆
- Visible from: 90°N to 65°S
- Brightest star: Regulus (mag 1.3)
- Best deep-sky object: Hamburger Galaxy (mag 9.5)
Leo is one of the 12 zodiac constellations. It was first cataloged in the 2nd century by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, along with the other zodiac constellations. Its name means “Lion” in Latin, and it’s often associated with the Nemean Lion, slain by Heracles during the first of his twelve labors.
Leo is the 12th largest and one of the most prominent constellations in the night sky. It can be seen from nearly anywhere on Earth except Antarctica. It’s easy to spot thanks to its distinctive shape: six naked-eye stars form an asterism called "The Sickle," which looks like a backward question mark. The brightest star in Leo, Regulus, sits at the base of this shape.
Ursa Major
- Brightness: ☆☆
- Visible from: 90°N to 30°S
- Brightest star: Alioth (mag 1.8)
- Best deep-sky objects: Bode’s Galaxy (mag 6.9), Pinwheel Galaxy (mag 7.9), Cigar Galaxy (mag 8.4)
Ursa Major is the third-largest constellation in the sky and the largest in the Northern Hemisphere. Its Latin name means "Greater Bear," referring to its smaller neighbor, Ursa Minor — the "Lesser Bear." Ursa Major features the Big Dipper, an asterism made up of seven bright stars and one of the most recognizable star patterns in the Northern Hemisphere.
The constellation was cataloged by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century. In Greek mythology, it’s linked to Callisto, a nymph transformed into a bear by Hera, the jealous wife of Zeus.
Ursa Major is a favorite among stargazers. In the Northern Hemisphere, it never dips below the horizon, making it visible year-round. It also hosts several notable stars and deep-sky objects, including the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), Bode’s Galaxy, the Cigar Galaxy, and the Owl Nebula.
Learn more: Fascinating deep-sky objects visible in April.
Hydra
- Brightness: ☆☆
- Visible from: 60°N to 90°S
- Brightest star: Alphard (mag 2.0)
- Best deep-sky objects: M48 (mag 5.8), Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (mag 7.6)
Don’t miss your chance to spot the largest of all 88 constellations — Hydra! Often depicted as a water snake, Hydra stretches across the celestial equator. It was also cataloged by Ptolemy in the 2nd century. Hydra is so long that the entire “snake” doesn’t fully rise until after midnight.
Even though Hydra is huge, it doesn’t have many bright stars. Its brightest star is orange-colored Alphard — the only star in Hydra easily visible to the naked eye even from light-polluted areas.
Hydra also has some interesting deep-sky objects. One of them is M48, an open star cluster near the edge of the constellation. It’s bright enough to see with the naked eye if the sky is dark and clear — but using binoculars will give you a better view.
Crater
- Brightness: ☆
- Visible from: 65°N to 90°S
- Brightest star: Delta Crateris (mag 3.6)
- Best deep-sky object: NGC 3511 (mag 10.8)
Riding on the back of Hydra, there’s a small and faint constellation called Crater. Its name means “the cup” in Latin, and it was one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
Crater is the 53rd largest constellation and doesn’t have any bright stars. Most of its stars are dimmer than 4th magnitude, which makes them hard to see in cities or other places with lots of light. To spot the Cup in the sky, it’s best to go somewhere with dark, clear skies away from city lights.
Leo Minor
- Brightness: ☆
- Visible from: 90°N to 45°S
- Brightest star: Praecipua (mag 3.8)
- Best deep-sky object: NGC 3344 (mag 10.5)
Leo Minor is a constellation that’s easy to locate but not easy to see. It sits between two well-known constellations — Ursa Major and Leo — but doesn’t contain any bright stars of its own. It’s also quite small, ranked 64th out of the 88 constellations, which makes its faint, triangular shape tricky to spot in the night sky.
The constellation was named by Johannes Hevelius in the late 1600s, along with several other star patterns that filled previously blank areas of the sky map. In Latin, Leo Minor means “the smaller lion”, created as a counterpart to the larger and more prominent constellation Leo.
Chamaeleon
- Brightness: ☆
- Visible from: 0°N to 90°S
- Brightest star: Alpha Chamaeleontis (mag 4.1)
- Best deep-sky object: Eta Chamaeleontis cluster (mag 5.5)
Chamaeleon is a small constellation — the 79th largest — and can only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. Like 11 other southern constellations, it was introduced in the late 1500s by Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman.
All the stars in Chamaeleon are fairly dim, with none brighter than 4th magnitude. Its four brightest stars form a compact diamond shape, located about 10 degrees from the south celestial pole and roughly 15 degrees south of Acrux, the brightest star in the Southern Cross.
Antlia
- Brightness: ☆
- Visible from: 45°N to 90°S
- Brightest star: Alpha Antliae (mag 4.2)
- Best deep-sky object: NGC 2997 (mag 10.6)
The stars in the constellation Antlia are so faint that the constellation wasn’t created until the 18th century. French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille focused on the previously uncharted, dark regions of the sky. To fill in the gaps between existing constellations, he introduced Antlia along with 13 other constellations. Nicolas named these new constellations after scientific instruments of his time. Antlia was named after the air pump, a device invented in the 1600s.
Antlia ranks as the 62nd largest constellation, but its brightest star is only magnitude 4.2 — barely visible without binoculars. A few stars in Antlia are known to have exoplanets, but they’re too dim to see with the naked eye. The constellation also contains many galaxies, though most are so distant and faint that amateur astronomers would struggle to find them.
Sextans
- Brightness: ☆
- Visible from: 80°N to 80°S
- Brightest star: Alpha Sextantis (mag 4.5)
- Best deep-sky object: NGC 3115 (mag 9.9)
Sextans is the 47th largest constellation and represents the sextant — an old astronomical instrument once used to measure star positions. It was also named by astronomer Johannes Hevelius in the 1600s, who was filling in a dim region of the sky between the brighter constellations Leo and Hydra.
The stars in Sextans are very faint, making the constellation appear as a dark, “empty” patch near Leo. While many galaxies are located in Sextans, only one is brighter than the 10th magnitude, so most are too faint to be seen with amateur equipment.
April night sky map
Take a look at the sky map for April evenings to better understand how the constellations will be positioned. The center of the map shows the sky directly overhead, and the circle along the edge is the horizon.
While some constellations rise and hide below the horizon, other constellations never set. They’re called circumpolar — for the Northern Hemisphere, you can see them in the north. The circumpolar constellations of the Southern Hemisphere are located in the south.
Constellations visible in April: bottom line
April is a great time to spot well-known constellations like Ursa Major and Leo, along with fainter but interesting ones such as Hydra and Leo Minor. With the Star Walk 2 app, you can easily find any constellation in your sky at any time. Happy stargazing!
What else to see in the sky in April 2025?
