Skylights: November 2023

After having spent the past 23 days in Libra, the Sun enters Scorpius on November 23, where it will spend less than a week, entering the non-zodiacal constellation Ophiuchus early on the 30th..

After the latest sunrise at 7:22am Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4) on the 4th, the change to Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5) occurs on the 5th.

November begins with the Moon going through its waning gibbous phase. Last quarter Moon occurs in Cancer on the 5th. It will be located just about 1 binocular field of view from M44, the Beehive cluster.

The slim, 27.7-day, 3.8% illuminated crescent Moon is 2.3° east of Spica, in Virgo, on the 11th.

New Moon occurs on the 13th, marking the beginning of Lunation 1248. First quarter Moon occurs on the 20th, in Aquarius.

The nearly Full Moon passes 1.0° south of the Pleiades cluster, M45, in Taurus on the 26th.

The Full Beaver Moon occurs at 4:15pm EST on the 27th. This is one of the most northerly Full Moons of the year, culminating at 71.5° above the horizon just before midnight on the 26th-27th. Also note that the Moon is just 1° from the Pleiades cluster at that time.

November sees an evening apparition of Mercury, though a rather unfavorable one, as its elongation angle relative to the horizon remains relatively shallow. Mercury is best viewed during the final week of the month, when it sets an hour after the Sun. The 1.6-day, 2.6% illuminated crescent Moon is just 4° to the left of Mercury on the 14th.

Venus shines brilliantly in the morning sky throughout November, as it is visible for nearly four hours before sunrise all month.

One of the year’s closest Moon-planet conjunctions occurs on the 9th, when the 25.6-day Moon is just 0.4° north of Venus. The closest pairing occurs at about 3:30am EST. An occultation occurs, but will not be visible from Rhode Island. 

On the 30th, Venus is 4.2° north-northeast of Spica, in Virgo.

Mars is in conjunction on the 18th, and will remain invisible until later in December. Noteworthy for this conjunction is that Mars will appear to pass behind the Sun's disk from our perspective, and the occultation takes a little under 39 hours. Occultations of Mars by the Sun are relatively uncommon, but not necessarily rare. The last time one occurred was in May 1998, and the next one will occur in October-November 2038.

Jupiter reaches opposition in Aries on the 3rd. At just 3.98 AU away, Jupiter shows a huge 50 arcsecond globe in telescopes in early November..

In a good demonstration of the opposition angle, the shadows of Jupiter’s Galilean moons transit at nearly the same time as the moon itself. There are a few such events to watch for: On the 3rd, Io begins transiting at 5:27am, then during that evening, Europa and its shadow transit at 9:15pm. On the 4th, Io transits beginning at 11:53pm.

Saturn ends its retrograde loop and begins moving prograde (eastward) on the 4th. In early November, the ringed planet remains in our evening sky until just after 1am (midnight beginning on the 6th).

The waxing gibbous Moon is 4.5° south-southeast of Saturn on the 20th.

Saturn reaches eastern quadrature (90° elongation) on the 23rd.

After Jupiter, Uranus also reaches opposition in November, on the 13th. Located in Aries about 12° east of Jupiter, Uranus shines at magnitude 5.7 and can be easily located with binoculars.

A line connecting Jupiter and the Pleiades cluster in Taurus is bisected by a 4.3 magnitude star, Botein (delta Arietis). Uranus is located 2.1° south of this star.

Its 3.8 arcsecond globe, larger than that of Mars currently, can be detected in most telescopes under steady seeing conditions, giving distinction to Uranus compared to stellar points.

The waning gibbous Moon is 2.0° north of Uranus on the 26th, and occults our locator star Botein at 5:15am.

With Uranus at its closest, at 18.63 AU, you may also want to try to spot its larger outer moons. Titania and Oberon, shine at magnitudes 13.8 and 14.0, respectively, placing them within reach of a 12-inch telescope on a dark night. Since we’re currently looking at the orbital plane of Uranus nearly pole-on, the moons will always be at least 25 arcseconds from the planet. As we’re looking at the south pole of Uranus, the moons appear to orbit clockwise around the planet.

Neptune is well-placed for viewing on November evenings. Our most distant planet can be located with binoculars or a telescope about 5° south of delta Piscium, the southeasternmost star in the Circlet asterism of Pisces. Still moving through its retrograde loop in Pisces, Neptune dips back into Aquarius for two weeks, beginning on the 27th.

The waxing gibbous Moon is 3.0° southwest of Neptune just past midnight on the 22nd.

Ceres is in conjunction on the 21st and will not be easily visible for the remainder of 2023.

The first half of November is the last good time to find Pluto, as the magnitude 14.5 dwarf planet is moving lower in the southwest in the early evening, and bright Moonlight will interfere with locating it later in the month.

At the beginning of November, Asteroid 4 Vesta is located between the two feet of Gemini, Tejat (mu Geminorum) and Alhena (gamma Geminorum). It then begins its retrograde loop and moves eastward,  entering Orion on the 28th, and brightens from magnitude 7.4 to 6.9 over the course of the month.

Another seldom-mentioned asteroid, 18 Melpomene, reaches opposition in Cetus on the 5th. It shines at magnitude 8.2 and lies about 8° south of Menkar (alpha Ceti) and 13° east of the long-period variable star Mira (omicron Ceti). The ~150 km rock is just 0.86 AU away.

While we’re now well into autumn, the summer stars are still with us in the early evening, mainly owing to the earlier sunsets giving us extra hours of dark observing time earlier in the day. Arcturus, which has been in our evening sky since spring, is disappearing below the west-northwestern  horizon during November’s early days. To the right, the Big Dipper is in its right-side-up stance, appearing to holding its delicious cosmic soup just above the northwestern horizon. Just opposite of Polaris, high in the north-northeast, Cassiopeia and Cepheus are in position to welcome your exploration of their deep-sky treasures.

A little later in the evening, around 7pm EST mid-month, we find the pointer stars of the Big Dipper oriented directly below Polaris, showing us the point of true north. Draw a line from the pointers, through Polaris, and continue on past the zenith. Notice that this line also connects the western edge of the Great Square of Pegasus, through the stars Scheat (beta Pegasi) and Markab (alpha Persei). Now continue this line farther towards the south, and find that it also intercepts Fomalhaut (alpha Piscis Austrini).

At about 8pm EST, we’re greeted by Orion, its belt stars forming a nearly vertical line rising out of the eastern horizon.  The Andromeda Galaxy, the farthest object visible to the unaided eye, at 2.5 million light years, is now high overhead.

In the west, we begin to notice that Cygnus, the Swan, is now making its annual migration west, taking with it the rest of the summer constellations surrounding the Milky Way’s Great Rift.

November is usually a good month for meteor watchers. The Taurids, a low-rate shower that originates from debris left by comet 2P/Encke, has both a southern and northern component, and lasts for several weeks, from October and through November. The southern component peaks on November 5-6, and the northern component peaks on the 11th-12th. As this peak activity coincides with the waning crescent and new Moon, prospects are generally favorable this year, but you’re likely to see some meteors well removed from the peak dates.

November’s better-known meteor shower, the Leonids, peaks over the 17th-18th. Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle replenishes the meteor stream every 33 years, and when Earth crosses into one of these streams, the Leonids undergo “storm” activity, the last of which was seen in 2001. We’re not expecting storm-level activity this year, but when the shower reaches its peak on the 17th-18th, the waxing crescent Moon shouldn’t provide too much interference.