Yokohama Night Sky January 2026

Facing east from the Yokohama World Porters, try to find the Orion constellation.

Yokohama is a nice place to live. It has (mini) golf and a great night scape.

This weekend, I had an (unplanned) date with my wife. We went to the Central Library to read books and then to Yokohama World Porters to get dinner. That was just a normal weekend, but then we found out that there is a rooftop area.

In the rooftop area, there is a BBQ place and a small mini-golf area. Since we have no experience playing mini golf, we tried it, and it was fun! The ticket was 900 JPY per person, which is not too bad. However, that is not what I want to tell today.

Me playing golf. This hole was the hardest one for me.

Recently, I noticed that the sky in Tokyo and Yokohama has been quite clear. I could see some bright stars quite clearly. Of course, since I was in the city, the light pollution was still harsh, but it was definitely nicer compared to Jakarta. I felt that Bekasi’s sky was redder compared to Yokohama (due to dust from industries?). Okay, back to the topic.

We saw Orion’s Belt, Sirius, Procyon, and Jupiter quite clearly. My wife took a picture of the sky with her iPhone, and to my surprise, it could capture the stars on camera! It could even capture stars near the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades, although they cannot be seen with the naked eye. (I put some of the star names in the pictures we took below.)

The "bright" sky taken with my iPhone 15 Pro camera. "Bright" is bad: it means fewer stars can be seen.

It is nice to observe the sky after a long time of not paying much attention to the heavens.