Features: Calendar | Lunar Almanac | Monthly Topic
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.
Angular Measurement Review: It is interesting to note that the relationship between the angle subtended by combinations of fingers on your fully outstretched arm are the same for all viewers. This is due to the fact that the hand's size is proportional to the arm's length. A shorter arm is attached to a smaller hand while a longer arm is attached to a larger hand, thus the angle measured remains the same. If you hold your arm fully outstretched, your little finger, when sighted down your arm, is one degree wide. Your three middle fingers is five degrees, your fist, 10 degrees, and the distance between your little finger and your pointer finger is 15 degrees no matter what your age or size.
From a dark site, the Milky Way (an "arm" of our spiral galaxy) "flows" high across the night sky. Note the stars of Cassiopeia, with its famous "W" shaped asterism, embedded in the Milky Way overhead. The Summer Triangle is still visible low in the W, and the Great Square of Pegasus glows high in the SW. Reddish Aldebaran (Taurus) and yellowish Capella (Auriga) glow in the SE. Castor and Pollux (the Gemini "twins") and reddish Betelgeuse (Orion), located at the upper left corner of its asterism (which reminds me of an hour glass with three "belt" stars "pinching" its middle) also now appear in the SE. These constellations are harbingers of winter.
For all practical purposes, MERCURY will not be observable this month, although it will visible, very low in the in the night sky at the end of this month. VENUS rises in the E about 90 minutes before sunrise at the beginning of the month. By the end of the month, it rises less than an hour before the Sun and will eventually be lost in the glare of morning twilight. MARS is our "poster planet" this month. It rises in the NE just before midnight at the beginning of the month and around 9:30 PM by month's end. It will be "orangish", at its largest apparent diameter and its brightest. Some of its surface features (white "ice" cap and dark, triangular Syrtis Major) will be visible from a dark sky through a medium size telescope. JUPITER appears in the S as night falls. It sets in the W around midnight at the beginning of the month but at 10 PM by the end of the month. Yellowish SATURN glows in the E after midnight and is lost in the SE as the Sun rises. Although its ring system is now "opening", it still looks more like a bar than a ring.
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. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.
| DATE | EVENT |
01 |
Daylight Savings Time (EDT) ends for most of us. If you use a planisphere to locate
astronomical objects, you no longer have to correct its time.
Look for a "pseudo-conjunction" (4 degrees) of Venus and the bright star Spica (Virgo) at 9 PM. |
02 |
From midnight to dawn, Mars slowly passes through M44, the Beehive star cluster (Cancer). This is a good binocular exercise. |
03 |
The nearly full Moon passes through the edge of M45, the Pleiades (Tarsus), from about 10 PM until 1 AM. Unfortunately this will only be visible to our readers located in the southern U.S. and points further south. |
09 |
Look NE for a conjunction (3 degrees) of the Moon and Mars at 1 AM. |
10 |
Look for a "pseudo-conjunction" (4 degrees) of the Moon and the bright star Regulus (Leo) just before dawn. |
12 |
Look for a conjunction (8 degrees) of the Moon and Saturn at 8 PM. |
14 |
Look for a "pseudo-conjunction" (4 degrees) of the Moon and the bright star Spica (Virgo) at dawn. |
15 |
Look for a conjunction (6 degrees) of the crescent Moon and Saturn, about 30 minutes before sunrise. |
16-17 |
The Leonid Meteor Shower peaks midnight and 4 AM. The shower is produced by the debris shed by Comet 55/Tempel-Tuttle during its journey around the Sun in 1466. This year the Moon will not be a problem so experts are predicting between 100 to 500 events/hour in a dark sky at the peak. Unfortunately, the best display will occur in Asia. |
23 |
Look for a conjunction (4 degrees) of the Moon and Jupiter. |
Lunar Almanac for November 2009
| Phases of the Moon | Phase and Date(s) | Best viewed before local midnight |
 |
New |
Deep Space Objects |
 |
1st. Qtr |
Planets & Moon |
 |
Full |
Moon |
 |
Last |
Deep Space & Planets |
Topic of the month:
Asteroid Vesta
|
The main asteroid belt orbits between Mars and Jupiter, about 2.3 to 3.3 A.U. from the Sun. It is composed mostly of small bodies made up of rocky and metallic minerals. They range in size from hundreds of kilometers in diameter to microscopic dust particles.
--See you next month! |
This installment of "Whats Up?" is ©2009 Ronald A. Leeseberg, encoded by Dawn Jenkins for Astra's Stargate.
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