SKY GUIDE: This map represents the night sky as it appears over Maine during November. The stars are shown as they appear at 10:30 p.m. early in the month, at 9:30 p.m. at midmonth, and at 8:30 p.m. at month’s end. Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus are shown at their midmonth positions. To use the map, hold it vertically and turn it so that the direction you are facing is at the bottom. Sky Chart prepared by Seth Lockman
This is the last full month of autumn and the days will be getting colder even as the nights are getting longer. The terrestrial landscape can get a quite bleak this time of year as our colorful foliage fades, but the celestial skyscape above us will more than compensate for that with many exciting highlights this month.
The main highlight this month will be a near total lunar eclipse on Friday morning Nov. 19 at 4 a.m. We are in another eclipse season now and this one will be followed by a total solar eclipse on Dec. 4, which will only be visible over part of Antarctica.
All five of the brightest planets will be visible at some point this month, with the long-awaited return of Mars happening in the morning sky late this month. There will be a daytime occultation of Mercury by a very thin waning crescent moon on Nov. 3 starting around 3:30 pm, but you would need a telescope and a good solar filter to see it. Uranus reaches opposition on Nov. 4, as it becomes visible all night long in Aries the Ram near Taurus. At a magnitude of 5.7, you could technically see this planet without any optical aid, but practically speaking you will need at least a pair of binoculars to see it well. In a small telescope its disk resolves into a beautiful and enigmatic greenish-blue color which is quite a sight to behold at 1.75 billion miles away, or two and a half hours at the speed of light.
All three of the remaining brightest planets continue to grace our evening sky at the same time. The brightest one, Venus sets a little after 8 p.m., and then Saturn will set just before midnight with Jupiter being the last one to set about two hours after Saturn.
The annual Leonid Meteor shower will peak on Nov. 17, but the moon will be just two days before full to wash out many of the meteors. Then we have a comet passing through Gemini and Cancer this month to be followed by a much brighter one, Comet Leonard, next month. The largest asteroid, Ceres, now upgraded to a dwarf planet even as Pluto was downgraded to the same status 15 years ago, is at opposition on Nov. 26 and will cross right through the Hyades star cluster in Taurus and its brightest star, Aldebaran on the first of this month. You will need binoculars to see this 600-mile-wide dwarf planet that shines at magnitude 7.7.
Even though this lunar eclipse on Nov. 19 will be only 97% total, it will look almost identical with a 100% total lunar eclipse. That would not be the case with a solar eclipse. Even a 99% solar eclipse does not reveal the ethereal corona and the sky does not go dark. This lunar eclipse will start at 1 a.m. as the moon will enter the penumbral part of the earth’s shadow. Nothing will really be noticeable until 2:18 a.m. as the partial phases begin as the moon enters the umbra, or deeper part of our shadow. Mid-eclipse occurs just after 4 a.m. and the partial phases end at 5:47 a.m., with the entire eclipse not ending until 7 a.m. at sunrise.
Try to get some good photographs of this fairly rare event. If you put several images of the eclipsed moon together, you would clearly see the outline of our shadow on the moon and the fact that the earth is round and four times larger than the moon. Every lunar and solar eclipse is always different, even though they share similar characteristics. The moon’s color when it is most deeply immersed in our shadow can range from very dark and nearly invisible, through deep shades of red, to light shades of copper and orange. The exact color depends on how much particulate matter is in our atmosphere at the time. I remember a lunar eclipse in the fall of 1991 when the moon almost disappeared because of all the ash in our atmosphere from the recent eruptions of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines that summer.
When you see the beautiful shades of red and orange this month, remember that you are really seeing the combined effect of all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth simultaneously projected onto the moon. Our atmosphere acts like a giant refracting lens as it bends the sunlight around it and onto the moon as it passes through the deepest part of shadow. Without that fact, the moon would always go black at this point. Also remember that our shadow is always there, stretching nearly 1 million miles into space, we just don’t usually notice it unless the moon passes through it about 240,000 miles away, or a quarter of the way into our permanent shadow. You could even say that the earth is always wearing a cone-shaped wizard’s cap as it constantly flies around the sun at 18.6 miles per second, or 67,000 mph.
Saturn and Jupiter continue to occupy opposite ends of Capricorn and they are both back to their normal eastward or prograde motion now with respect to the fixed background of stars. They are about 20 degrees – or two fists at arm’s length – apart now and getting slightly fainter as we pull farther ahead of them in our orbit. Notice that Jupiter is about 15 times brighter than Saturn. By the end of the month, Saturn will already set by 9 p.m. to be followed by Jupiter at 11 p.m.
Venus is now only 40% lit by the sun and it is getting less illuminated each day even as it is getting closer to Earth and brighter in our sky. Venus is about 10 times brighter than Jupiter and just over 100 times brighter than Saturn.
NOVEMBER HIGHLIGHTS
Nov. 3: In 1957 the Russians launched the second spacecraft ever into Earth orbit and the first to carry a living creature, a dog named Laika.
Nov. 4: New moon is at 5:15 p.m. Uranus is at opposition at 8 p.m.
Nov. 5: The moon is at perigee or closest to Earth at 222.975 miles.
Nov. 6: In 1572, Tycho Brahe saw a supernova in Cassiopeia. The only other recent supernova visible with the naked eye in our own galaxy was Kepler’s supernova on Oct. 8, 1604. Those were both before the invention of the telescope in 1609. We should average about one visible supernova every 100 years, so we are way overdue for another one.
Nov. 7: The moon passes near Venus. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m.
Nov. 8: Edmund Halley was born in 1656. I first saw his comet on this day in 1985.
Nov. 9: Carl Sagan was born in 1934. There is another recent remake of his original COSMOS from 1980 now called COSMOS, Possible Worlds.
Nov. 10: The waxing crescent moon passes near Saturn tonight.
Nov. 11: First quarter moon is at 7:46 a.m. The moon passes near Jupiter tonight.
Nov. 17: The Leonid meteor shower peaks this morning. Normally we could expect about 20 meteors per hour, tiny sand grain-sized pieces of Comet Temple-Tuttle, but the nearly full moon will spoil the show. You can still look for some early fireballs as soon as it gets dark enough.
Nov. 19: Full moon is at 3:57 a.m. A near total lunar eclipse occurs this morning. This is also called the Beaver or Frosty Moon.
Nov. 20: The moon is at apogee or farthest from Earth today at 252,450 miles. Edwin Hubble was born in 1889. His namesake Space telescope is still working over 31 years after its launch on April 24, 1990.
Nov. 26: Dwarf planet Ceres is at opposition today.
Nov. 27: Last quarter moon is at 7:28 a.m.
Nov. 28: Mercury is in superior conjunction with the sun at midnight.
Bernie Reim of Wells is co-director of the Astronomical Society of Northern New England.
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