On November 3, we fall back. On that same evening, look for the slender crescent moon two degrees south of Mercury in dusk. The Moon catches up with Venus on November 5, passing 3.5 degrees south of the brilliant “evening star.” The first quarter moon is on November 9. The waxing gibbous moon is just south of Saturn about sunset on November 10 — a great photo op. Much of the world will witness an occultation, but for us a close miss! The Full or Beaver Moon is on November 15. Mercury is highest east of the sun on the evening of November 16, 23 degrees behind it. On the outer fringe of the solar system, Uranus is at opposition on November 17, the same day that much closer Jupiter has the moon passing 5.6 degrees north of Jupiter. Much closer to home, the Moon passes by Mars on November 20thk some two degrees north of it. The Moon is last quarter on November 23.
Mercury is well placed in the SW evening skies the first two weeks of November, but is lost in its glare by Thanksgiving. Venus dominates the SW sky, getting closer and brighter but also shrinking in phase to approach half litby Christmas.
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit skymaps.com.
Setting in the southwest is the teapot shape of Sagittarius, which marks the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy, with Saturn just above the lid of its teapot. The best view of our Galaxy lies overhead now. The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega dominates the sky in the northwest. To the northeast of Vega is Deneb, the brightest star of Cygnus the Swan. To the south is Altair, the brightest star of Aquila the Eagle, the third member of the three bright stars that make the Summer Triangle so obvious in the NE these clear autumn evenings. Use binocs and your sky map to spot many clusters here, using the SkyMap download to locate some of the best ones plotted and described on the back.
Overhead the square of Pegasus is a beacon of fall. South of it is the only bright star of Fall, Fomalhaut. If the southern skies of Fall look sparse, it is because we are looking away from our Galaxy into the depths of intergalactic space. The constellation Cassiopeia makes a striking W, rising in the NE as the Big Dipper sets in the NW. Polaris lies about midway between them. She contains many fine star clusters and nebulae. Much more distant in her daughter Andromeda is the closest large spiral galaxy comparable to our own Milky Way, M-31. The article’s lead image of it with two smaller companion galaxies, M-32 (below the nucleus) and M-110 (to upper left) was taken with the new Dwarf 3 digital telescope, now available for $400, with the ability to take telephotos like this as well as wide angle photos of the constellations.
To the northeast, Andromeda’s hero, Perseus, rises. Perseus contains the famed eclipsing binary star Algol, where the Arabs imagined the eye of the gorgon Medusa would lie. It fades to a third its normal brightness for six out of every 70 hours, as a larger but cooler orange giant covers about 80% of the smaller but hotter and thus brighter companion as seen from Earth. south. Look at Perseus’ feet for the famed Pleiades cluster to rise, a sure sign of bright winter stars to come. This is probably thebest sight in the sky with binoculars, with hundreds of fainter stars joining the famed “Seven Sisters” with 10x50 binocs. In addition to the stars, we see this cluster passing through a nearby cloud of dust and gas and the stars having their blue light reflected by the dust particles, in the same way our sky in daytime is turned blue by tiny molecules in our atmosphere that in “Rayleigh Scattering” selectively scatter the shorter blue waves, while allowing the reds of sunset and total lunar eclipses to pass through our atmosphere. This fine shot was taken by EAAA President Ed Magowan with a telephoto lens and time exposure of several minutes, while tracking the earth’s rotation.
To the NE, yellow Capella, a giant star the same temperature and color as our much smaller Sun, rises at 7 p.m. as November begins along the northeastern horizon. It is the fifth brightest star in the sky, and a beacon of the colorful and bright winter stars to come in December. South of the pentagon of Auriga, we find bright Jupiter, near orange Aldeberan, the eye of Taurus the Bull, rising in the NE about 7 p.m. by mid-November.
On the Saturdays of the first and third quarter moon we continue our cooperation with the Florida State Parks at Big Lagoon State Park. Here the emphasis is on learning to observe and photograph the night sky with binoculars or your own telescopes and smartphones or other cameras. Normal entry fees ($6 per car) to Big Lagoon still apply, and remember to check in the front gate before it closes at sunset! Clear skies permitting, we set up on November 9, November 23, and December 7.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, visit us on Facebook or contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State College; e-mail her at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. For more on our stargazes, contact Wayne Wooten by email at johnwaynewooten@gmail.com. All EAAA events are free and open to the public.