For northern stargazers, November means earlier sunsets and longer and cooler stargazing sessions, while southern-hemisphere observers now enjoy the warmer nights of spring. Deep-sky watchers look to the open star clusters of Cassiopeia and Perseus and the galaxies fields of Pegasus and Sculptor. Orion rises late in the evening and dominates the southern sky after midnight. The bright planets Jupiter and Saturn are just past their prime for the year but still big enough for observing in a telescope, while Venus adorns the evening sky in the southwest and Mercury makes a brief appearance in the pre-dawn sky. The ‘Halloween Fireballs’ continue into the first week of the month. And auroral activity has been picking up as the Sun grows more active in its 11-year cycle. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month…
3 November 2021. Look for a slender crescent Moon, tiny Mercury, and the white star Spica low over the eastern horizon gathered in a 5o triangle before sunrise. A pair of binoculars help pull them out of the brightening morning twilight.
4 Nov. New Moon, 21:15 UT
5 Nov. Uranus reaches opposition today. The planet shines just at the edge of naked-eye visibility at magnitude +5.7 at a distance of about 18.7 astronomical units (2.8 billion kilometers) from Earth. Look for it about one degree west of the star omicron Arietis. In a telescope, the planet’s featureless grey-green disk spans about 3.7 arc-seconds. Uranus remains visible through the rest of the year in this part of the sky.
7 Nov. If you live in North America, turn your clocks back by one hour as Daylight Saving Time ends. If the weather allows, use your extra hour for stargazing!
6-12 Nov. The Taurid meteor showers peak this week. There are two, the Northern and Southern Taurids, and they both peak in late October through mid-November. They’re sometimes called the Halloween Fireballs. You can see these bright, slow-moving fireballs in the northern and southern hemispheres at essentially any time of night. Expect a modest 5-10 meteors an hour.
7 Nov. Look for Venus and a new crescent Moon in the southwestern sky after sunset. The pair lie near the ‘Teapot’ asterism of Sagittarius as it sets below the horizon. As darkness falls and planet and Moon set, and if you’re away from light pollution, look for the vertical band of the Milky Way emerge in the same part of the sky.
10 Nov. The big planets Jupiter and Saturn form a squat triangle with the almost first-quarter Moon in the constellation Capricornus. Both planets are well past opposition but they’re still big enough to show some detail in a telescope. At magnitude -2.4, Jupiter still outshines all but Venus and the Moon in the evening sky.
11 Nov. First Quarter Moon, 12:46 UT
19 Nov. Full Moon, 08:57 UT
19 Nov. A ‘nearly total’ lunar eclipse falls over all of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe on the night and morning of November 18-19. While it’s technically a partial eclipse, about 97% of the Moon’s face lies in the Earth’s shadow at peak eclipse. During the eclipse, the Moon lies near the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters which offers promising imaging opportunities. The eclipse runs from 6:02 to 12:03 UT on November 19. Maximum eclipse occurs at 9:03 UT. Look into more details about the visibility and timing of this impressive event at this link.
23 Nov. See the waning gibbous Moon, still very bright, rising in the east about 9 p.m. local time along with the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. As the evening wears on, look also for Orion rising in the southeast heralding the upcoming arrival of winter next month.
27 Nov. Last Quarter Moon, 12:28 UT