Action-packed November night skies from sunset to sunrise
November is always a great time for stargazing fans. This year we have even more added attractions, both in the evening and early morning over Butler.
In the evening heavens, the feature attraction is Saturn. This ringed wonder is a great target even for the smallest telescopes. It’s easy to find in the early evening south-southeast sky, about halfway between the horizon and the zenith. It’s the brightest starlike object in that part of the sky. Saturn reached its closest approach to Earth in early October and is still relatively close, around 795 million miles away as November begins. Through a telescope, Saturn is a stunning sight, with its beautiful ring system and numerous moons that resemble tiny “stars” surrounding the planet. Keep in mind that the rings are mainly made up of ice particles. That's why it's so reflective. Also, on average, the ring system is only about 50 feet thick.
Not far away in the south-southeastern evening sky, you can see Pegasus the Winged Horse, one of the prime autumn constellations, with Andromeda the Princess tagging along. Use apps like Sky Guide to locate the Andromeda Galaxy. Although it is our Milky Way’s next-door neighbor, it’s still well over two million light years away. You can see it with a small telescope, but in super dark skies, you can even see it with the naked eye. It looks like a tiny, faint patch of cloud.
Speaking of the Milky Way, if you're enjoying stargazing in dark skies free from heavy light pollution, you’ll see a ghostlike ribbon of light extending from the southwest to the northeast horizon. That’s the Milky Way band. It’s the collective light from millions and millions of really distant stars in the thick plane of our vast home galaxy. All the other stars in the night sky are also members of the Milky Way but they're in our immediate stellar neighborhood.
Face north, and you’ll see old friends like the Big Dipper; the rear end and tail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear, riding very low in the sky this month. A little higher in the northern sky hanging upside down is the Little Dipper, otherwise known as Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. Cassiopeia the Queen, the constellation resembling a giant sideways W, proudly shows off her stuff in the high northeast sky. The W outlines the Queen's throne, and Cassiopeia is tied to it. She really ticked off other gods and goddesses by constantly bragging about her great beauty. Eventually, they tossed Cassiopeia high into the sky, eternally bound to her throne for all to see.
In the Western sky, some summer constellations still remain, believe it or not. Among the brighter ones are Cygnus the Swan, Lyra the Harp and Aquila the Eagle. We won’t see them for too much longer. As Earth orbits the Sun, summer stars will gradually set earlier and earlier each evening.
In the east, some of the bright winter constellations are already rising on the November celestial stage. First, you can’t help but notice a beautiful little star cluster shining brightly in the low eastern sky, resembling a tiny dipper. It’s not the Little Dipper. It’s the Pleiades star cluster, the best naked-eye star cluster in the night sky. Astronomically, the Pleiades are a group of young stars almost 2400 trillion miles away, born together about 100 million years ago.
Night owls and early-morning pre-twilight stargazers are in for a real treat this month with some great celestial happenings. After midnight, all the dazzling winter constellations are above the horizon, including the best one in my opinion, Orion the Hunter. Just east of Orion and his gang, you can also watch the very bright planet Jupiter and much fainter Mars have a close face-off in November. The bright star Regulus will also join them closely, and at times the moon crowds in. It’ll be quite a show!
As November begins, Mars is just to the upper right of Jupiter in the south-southeastern sky. Mars won’t be nearly as bright as brilliant Jupiter, but you know it’s Mars with its distinctive red-orange glow. From early- to mid-November, Mars will race even closer to Jupiter, and in the early morning hours of Nov. 16, they will be at their closest, separated by just 1.2 degrees. That’s about the width of your finger held at arm’s length. Close by is Regulus, just below and to the left of the kissing planets. Mars and Jupiter will easily be in the same field of view through most binoculars. Even with a small telescope, you’ll see some of Jupiter’s cloud bands and several of its larger moons, resembling tiny stars on either side of the planet. It’ll be much more challenging to see surface details on Mars but you may detect some darker markings.
Jupiter and Mars aren’t the only planets performing in the predawn heavens. The extremely bright planet Venus, the morning “star,” will blaze in the low east-southeast sky during morning twilight. Spica, a bright star but much fainter than Venus, will be hanging very close by. It may be hard to spot Spica against Venus's dominating glare.
Three meteor showers occur in November: the Southern Taurids, Northern Taurids and the Leonids. The Southern Taurids peak in the early morning of Nov. 4 through 5; the Northern Taurids peak on the 11 and 12. The Leonids meteor shower peaks in the early morning pre-twilight hours of Nov. 17. All three are minor showers, but worth checking out since there won’t be much moonlight after midnight, leaving a darker sky. The best time to see any meteor shower is from midnight to just before morning twilight. You may see 10 to 20 meteors per hour with the Leonids, especially in the countryside.
Enjoy all the happenings going on in the longer nights this November!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
