Written by 
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1
■ November fireballs? Every year from roughly late October through mid-November, a truly dazzling Taurid meteor just might take you by surprise in the night. If you get very lucky.
Normally the broad, weak, South and North Taurid meteor showers sputter along very unimpressively. Under ideal conditions you might see 5 or 10 ordinary little meteors per hour during the poorly defined, weeks-long maximum when the two branches of the shower overlap. Both include debris shed by Comet 2P/Encke, but a recent analysis shows that a host of other objects — near-Earth asteroids, collisional fragments, and dormant cometary nuclei — might be creating several overlapping streams of particles. Consequently, both Taurid components have long-lasting “maxima” that aren’t easy to pin down.
What makes the Taurids potentially exciting is that their small numbers are known for a high proportion of bright fireballs — occasionally, an extremely bright one that makes the news.
The Taurids strike the atmosphere at a relatively slow 19 miles (30 km) per second. If you see an especially bright, slow meteor these nights, check whether its line of flight, if traced backward far enough across the sky, would intersect more or less the Pleiades side of Taurus.
■ New Moon (exact at 8:47 a.m.)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2
■ Algol in Perseus, high in the east, should be in mid-eclipse, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on 10:42 p.m. EDT; 7:42 p.m. PDT. Algol takes several hours to fade beforehand and to rebrighten after. Comparison-star chart, with north up. (Celestial north is always the direction in the sky toward Polaris. Outside at night, turn the chart around to match.)
At any random time you look up at Algol, you have only a 1-in-30 chance of catching it at least 1 magnitude fainter than normal.
■ Daylight-saving time, observed in most of North America, ends at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Clocks “fall back” an hour. Daylight time for North America runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November; the rules last changed in 2007. Daylight time is not used in Hawaii, Saskatchewan, Puerto Rico, or in most of Arizona.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3
■ If you know a place with a very low view to the southwest horizon, bring binoculars after sunset to try for the very thin crescent Moon close to Antares, deep in the bright twilight and thick air near the horizon. They’re about 12° lower right of Venus, as shown below.
■ The Summer Triangle Effect. Here it is early November, but Deneb still shines right near the zenith as the stars come out. And brighter Vega is still not very far from the zenith, toward the west. The third star of the “Summer” Triangle, Altair, remains very high in the southwest. They seem to have stayed there for a couple months! Why have they stalled out?
What you’re seeing is a result of sunset and darkness arriving earlier and earlier during autumn. Which means if you go out and starwatch soon after dark, you’re doing it earlier and earlier by the clock. This counteracts the seasonal westward turning of the constellations.
Of course this “Summer Triangle effect” applies to the entire celestial sphere, not just the Summer Triangle. But the apparent stalling of that bright landmark inspired Sky & Telescope to give the effect that name many years ago, and it stuck.
Of course, as always in celestial mechanics, a deficit somewhere gets made up elsewhere. The opposite effect makes the seasonal advance of the constellations seem to speed up in early spring. The spring-sky landmarks of Virgo and Corvus seem to dash away westward from week to week almost before you know it, due to darkness falling later and later. Let’s call this the “Corvus effect.”
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4
■ As twilight fades this evening, the thin crescent Moon hangs about 4° below Venus in the southwest, as shown above.
Dim gray earthshine will fill the Moon’s dark portion. If you were standing on the Moon’s surface there in the lunar night, you would see the nearly full Earth lighting up the lunar landscape around you — several times more brightly than full moonlight illuminates scenes on Earth.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
■ Can you find M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, the closest large galaxy to us after the famous one in Andromeda? It’s a good deal dimmer, with a low surface brightness that needs a dark sky. But in such a sky I find that it’s not too hard a target in 10×50 binoculars. It’s about a third of the way from Alpha Trianguli (the sharp point of the Triangle) to Beta Andromedae (the middle star of Andromeda’s main line of three). Check out the finder chart with Matt Wedel’s Binocular Highlight column about M33 in the November Sky & Telescope, page 43.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6
■ When the stars come out now, the Great Square of Pegasus still balances on its corner very high in the southeast. But within two hours it turns around to lie level like a box, very high toward the south.
A sky landmark to remember this season: The west (right-hand) side of the Great Square points down almost to 1st-magnitude Saturn and, two fists farther beyond, 1st-magnitude Fomalhaut. The Square’s east side points down less directly toward 2nd-magnitude Beta Ceti.
This month Beta Ceti forms the long point of an isosceles triangle with Saturn and Fomalhaut, which are to its right.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
■ As darkness arrives this week, Capella shines fairly low in the northeast. Look for the Pleiades almost three fists to Capella’s right. As evening grows later, you’ll find orange Aldebaran climbing up about a fist, or a little more, under the Pleiades. And soon brilliant Jupiter makes its appearance left or lower left of Aldebaran.
By about 9 p.m., depending on your location, Orion will be clearing the east horizon far below them.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
■ This evening, the shadow of Jupiter’s moon Io crosses the planet’s face from 8:51 to 11:03 p.m. EST, followed by Io itself from 9:34 to 11:45 p.m. EST.
Meanwhile, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot should cross the planet’s central meridian around 10:19 p.m. EST. The spot should be visible with about the same degree of difficulty for an hour before and after then in a good 4-inch telescope if the seeing is sharp and steady.
And look for any signs of bluish festoons in the north edge of Jupiter’s Equatorial Zone. See “Observing Jupiter’s ‘Blue Holes’ ” in the November Sky & Telescope, page 52.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9
■ The season tilts winterward. Around 8 or 9 p.m. now, depending on where you are, zero-magnitude Capella, star of winter, climbs exactly as high in the northeast as zero-magnitude Vega, the Summer Star, has sunk in the west-northwest. How accurately can you time this event? Sextant not required. . . but this is the sort of measurement they were made for.
■ Happy 90th birthday, Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996). If only.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10
■ The waxing gibbous Moon shines quite near Saturn this evening for the Americas. In fact its dark limb will occult Saturn for southern Florida, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America.
Map and timetables. For instance, seen from Miami, Saturn will slowly disappear at 9:26 p.m. EST, then will slowly reappear from behind the Moon’s bright limb at 10:04 p.m. EST.
This Week’s Planet Roundup
Mercury (magnitude –0.3) is very deep in the sunset glow. Try for it with binoculars or a wide-field telescope 18°or 19° to the lower right of Venus, as shown near the top of this page. Don’t be confused by fainter, twinklier Antares between them. (And by the way, have you ever seen Antares in November at all? Few have, because it’s so close to the Sun. Here’s your chance.)
Venus (magnitude –4.0), gleams low in the southwest in evening twilight, noticeably higher every week now. It doesn’t set until about a half hour after the end of twilight.
Mars (magnitude 0.0, in eastern Gemini) rises around 11 p.m. daylight-saving time, 10 p.m. standard time. It shows best, very high in the south, in the hour or more before the start of dawn. It’s about 40° east along the ecliptic from bright Jupiter.
Mars in a telescope has enlarged to 10 arcseconds in apparent diameter, the size that amateur visual observers have traditionally called big enough to make markings on Mars decently visible even in good seeing. Mars is on its way to a relatively distant opposition next January, when it will reach an apparent diameter of only 14.5 arcseconds.
Jupiter (magnitude –2.7, still near the horntips of Taurus) rises in the east-northeast shortly after dark. It’s highest toward the south in the hours after midnight. Jupiter is now a nice 46 arcseconds wide in a telescope, essentially as large as the 48-arcsecond width it will attain for the weeks around its opposition in early December.
Mars here shows its North Polar Cap, dark Mare Sirenum near the South Polar Cloud Hood, and some finer detail. On Jupiter, the North Equatorial Belt (with a bright white cloud outbreak) is slightly darker than the South Equatorial Belt, at least on this side of the planet.
Saturn, magnitude +0.8 in Aquarius, glows high in the southeast as the stars come out. Don’t confuse it with Fomalhaut twinkling two fists to its lower right. Saturn stands highest in the south by 9 p.m. daylight-saving time, 8 p.m. standard time, with Fomalhaut now directly under it.
Uranus (magnitude 5.6, at the Taurus-Aries border) is well up by mid-evening about 7° from the Pleiades. You’ll need a good finder chart to tell it from its surrounding faint stars. Charts are in the November Sky & Telescope, page 49.
Neptune (tougher at magnitude 7.8, under the Circlet of Pisces) is high after nightfall, 15° east of Saturn. Again you’ll need a proper finder chart.
All descriptions that relate to your horizon — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world’s mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions and graphics that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America.
Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) is Universal Time minus 4 hours. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is UT minus 5 hours. UT is also known as UTC, GMT, or Z time.
Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations. They’re the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.
This is an outdoor nature hobby. For a more detailed constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy.
Once you get a telescope, to put it to good use you’ll need a much more detailed, large-scale sky atlas (set of charts). The basic standard is the Pocket Sky Atlas (in either the original or Jumbo Edition), which shows all stars to magnitude 7.6.
Next up is the larger and deeper Sky Atlas 2000.0, plotting stars to magnitude 8.5; nearly three times as many. It’s currently out of print. The next up, once you know your way around well, are the even larger Interstellarum atlas (stars to magnitude 9.5) or Uranometria 2000.0 (stars to mag 9.75). And read How to Use a Star Chart with a Telescope. It applies just as much to charts on your phone or tablet as to charts on paper.
You’ll also want a good deep-sky guidebook. A beloved old classic is the three-volume Burnham’s Celestial Handbook. An impressive more modern one is the big Night Sky Observer’s Guide set (2+ volumes) by Kepple and Sanner. The pinnacle for total astro-geeks is the Annals of the Deep Sky series, currently at 10 volumes as it slowly works forward through the constellations alphabetically. So far it’s only up to F.
Can computerized telescopes replace charts? Not for beginners I don’t think, and not for scopes on mounts and tripods that are less than top-quality mechanically. Unless, that is, you prefer spending your time getting finicky technology to work rather than learning how to explore the sky. As Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, “A full appreciation of the universe cannot come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understanding how the sky works. This knowledge comes only by spending time under the stars with star maps in hand and a curious mind.” Without these, “the sky never becomes a friendly place.”
If you do get a computerized scope, make sure that its drives can be disengaged so you can swing it around and point it readily by hand when you want to, rather than only slowly by the electric motors (which eat batteries).
However, finding faint telescopic objects the old-fashioned way with charts isn’t simple either. Learn the essential tricks at How to Use a Star Chart with a Telescope.
Audio sky tour. Out under the evening sky with your
earbuds in place, listen to Kelly Beatty’s monthly
podcast tour of the naked-eye heavens above. It’s free.
“The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking, it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.”
— Carl Sagan, 1996
“Facts are stubborn things.”
— John Adams, 1770