What's Up in the Night Sky

November 2024 - Vol. 28, No. 11

This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

If you are blessed with a dark observing site, the Orion arm of the Milky Way (the galaxy we inhabit) arches overhead from horizon to horizon. Embedded are the stars of constellations Cassiopeia, denoted by its familiar "W" or Sigma asterism, and Perseus. The Summer Triangle finally disappears early in the West before midnight. Although there are no bright stars due South, red Aldebaran and the tiny dipper asterism of the Pleiades's, a famous open star cluster (Taurus), as well as yellow Capella (Auriga) glow in the southeast. Later follows the twins, Castor and Pollux (Gemini), and the hour-glass asterism of constellation Orion with fuzzy M42 (Great Orion Nebula) just below its three "belt" stars, that heralds the coming of winter.

MERCURY shines at -0.3 early in the month, favoring southern observers. VENUS in the evening sky, this part of its 8-year cycle favors the southern hemisphere. Shining at -4.0, our sister planet will still put on a show, reaching 20 degrees in altitude by month's end. MARS now rises before midnight in the constellation Cancer until its upcoming retrograde motion (starting December 7) pulls it back into Gemini next month. JUPITER in retrograde motion, dominates the night sky at -2.8 by month's end. SATURN returns to prograde motion on November 16, fading from 0.8 to 0.9 by the end of the month. URANUS, moving retrograde in Taurus, continues toward its opposition on November 17. NEPTUNE is in the constellation Pisces, requiring a telescope to properly observe.

Review how to determine Angular Measurement.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time. Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or cable TV's Weather Channel for sunrise and sunset times or check with the U.S. Naval observatory. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

DATE	EVENT
03	Daylight Savings Time ends for affected areas. Mercury 2 deg. N. of Moon.
04	Alpha Scorpii, Antares, 0.08 deg. S. of Moon, occultation from SW Micronesia, E. Indonesia, Melanesia, NE Australia, S. Polynesia except New Zealand.
05	Venus 3 deg. N. of Moon. S. Taurid meteor peak. The South Taurid shower can generate up to 10 meteors per hour. It originates from the periodic comet Encke (2P/Encke).
10	Mercury 2 deg. N. of Antares.
11	Saturn 0.09 deg. S. of the Moon, occultation from E. Polynesia, Galapagos Is., NW South America, Central America, Caribbean, SE U.S.A., and W. Azores.
12	Mercury at greatest heliocentric latitude S. Neptune 0.6 deg. S. of Moon, occultation from N. Polynesia, North America, Greenland, and Iceland. The North Taurid meteor peak produces up to 15 meteors per hour. The North Taurid shower originated from the asteroid 2004 TG10, that is possibly a large fragment of comet Encke.
14	Moon at perigee.
17	November's full moon is often called the "Frost" or "Freezing" Moon as it was named by native Americans. Because this full Moon occurs when the Moon is near perigee, it will be called a "supermoon" by the media.
16	Uranus 4 deg. S. of the Moon. Saturn stationary. Moon 0.2 deg. N. of the Pleiades star cluster (M-45). Mercury greatest elongation E.
17	Leonids meteor shower produces up to 20 meteors per hour, originating from the periodic comet Tempel–Tuttle. Jupiter 6 deg. S. of Moon. Uranus at opposition.
20	Alpha Geminorum, Pollux, 1.9 deg. N. of Moon. Mars 2 deg. S. of Moon.
21	Venus greatest heliocentric latitude S.
26	Moon at apogee. Mercury stationary.
27	Alpha Virginis, Spica, 0.4 deg. S. of Moon, occultation from Most of U.S.A. and Canada, Caribbean, extreme NE of South America, Cape Verde Is., and parts of W. Africa.

Lunar Almanac for November 2024

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 01	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 08	Planets & Moon
	Full 15	Moon
	Last Qtr 23	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: The Winged Horse, Pegasus

The evening sky welcomes the northern hemisphere to longer nights and views of the celestial vault; while in the south, night is shrinking and Spring has arrived. Soon after darkness falls, the Great Square of Pegasus is now fully risen above the eastern horizon. An ancient constellation fairly easily recognized as four stars trace out the shape of a square. These are Markab, Sheat, Algenib and a fourth star, officially attributed to the adjoining constellation of Andromeda, the star Alpheratz. This "great square" has been a valuable guide for navigators and astronomer's alike. Another prominent star in the constellation is the Epsilan Pegasi, Enif that is said to represent the "nose" of the horse. Pegasus, like many other constellations, only represents the front half of the horse including the wings. Pegasus is also notable as it lies on the 0 hour of right ascension. Each side of the square covers 15 degrees of the sky, lying in a north-south direction.

The constellation of Pegasus against a celestial grid

Two stars, Alpheratz and Algenib point to the position of Spring equinox, the position of the Sun on the first day of Spring, about as far below them as the distance of their separation. There is no special star to mark this position, but it may help to understand how the stars appear to rotate around the Earth on the celestial sphere. Markab is considered to be the alpha star of the constellation, its magnitude is 2.5, consequently there are no first magnitude stars in the constellation. The star 1 Peg at magnitude 4.1 is a nice double, a yellow star with a mag 9 companion visible in small telescopes.

There are some wonderful objects in the constellation of Pegasus, including the bright globular cluster M-15. It is one of the most beautiful clusters in the northern sky, about 4 deg N. of Enif. The core of this cluster is very bright, occupied by a host of 13th magnitude stars, that may be seen in a larger instrument at 175x. Another favorite galaxy in the constellation is NGC 7331, a 10th magnitude spiral galaxy about 40 million light years away. This galaxy is often used to illustrate how the Milky Way would appear from a distance. It is a type Sb spiral, tipped about 20 degrees toward us. It has 4 known companion galaxies that also have NGC numbers.

The Great Square of Pegasus is also used to find the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way in the nearby Andromeda constellation. The spiral galaxy M-31 also known as the Andromeda Galaxy is so bright that it can appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch, broader than the Moon.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac

The star chart above was generated by Stellarium, a free open source planetarium program. The above image was created by Dawn Jenkins, using Stellarium and a graphic editing program to format the image for this web page. Editing was done for educational purposes only. Stellarium offers much more to amateur astronomers and is being used in planetariums and to guide telescopes in the field. Simple charts like the one above can be used on the internet for non-profit, illustration purposes. Proper credit is due of course! Thank you to the makers of this fine program from Astra's Star Gate.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac