Stargazing at La Palma in December

Canary Islands, Spain. Figures for December 2026, calculated by us. Times are local.

Stars, no core

In mid-December the sky is fully dark from about 19:40 to 06:33, 10.7 hours a night. The bright centre of the Milky Way is only up in daylight this month, but the rest of the sky is still worth the trip.

The darkest nights in December 2026

Nights when the Moon is down for almost all of the dark hours:

4 Dec to 12 Dec 2026 (9 nights)

New Moon: 9 December 2026
Full Moon: 24 December 2026

What to know

The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory stands at about 2,396 m.
The Canary Islands’ ‘Sky Law’, approved in 1988, limits light pollution to protect the observatories.
As on Tenerife, low clouds generally stay well below the summit ridge.

The summit road is long and winding. Allow plenty of time, and do not drive it for the first time in the dark if you can avoid it.

The white dome of a large telescope on a mountain ridge above the sea, with a comet’s tail in the twilight sky — The William Herschel Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, with comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS. Photo: Whyistheskyblue1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Get a note when it is worth going out

A short email before an eclipse, a strong meteor shower or a dark week worth planning for. No more than a few a month.

La Palma: the whole year. All five dark-sky places.

Sources

Darkness, Moon and Milky Way: our calculation, Astronomy Engine 2.1.19 (MIT licence). How we worked it out.
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, observatories leaflet.