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Your guide to constellations, deep-sky objects, planets and events
Tonight's Sky, Highlights of the November Sky
Evening Planets
Soon after sunset, Venus emerges to shine like a beacon
over the southwestern horizon.
A telescope provides a slightly better view.
Late in the evening, look for magnificent Jupiter in the east.
Watch as it climbs higher into the autumn night sky.
Constellations and Deep-Sky Objects
Some fish, a ram, and a triangle can all be found in the November night sky.
Pisces, in ancient mythology, are twin fish tied together.
They represent two Greek gods fleeing fire.
Look for the circlets of stars high in the southern sky.
Just to the east of Pisces lies Aries, the golden ram of the Greek gods.
It is a dim constellation.
Pisces and Aries are in the zodiac,
the band of sky through which the Sun appears to travel.
Triangulum, a simple geometric constellation,
has been identified since ancient times.
Look for it next to the Ram and the Fish.
The lovely Triangulum Galaxy resides here.
It belongs to the same cluster of galaxies that includes our own Milky Way.
Also known as M33, the galaxy is about 3 million light-years distant.
It can be seen in a dark sky with binoculars.
Morning Planets
Ruddy Mars shines in the eastern sky in the hours before dawn.
Sharp-eyed observers can spy the planet’s bright and dark
features through a telescope.
Elusive Mercury makes an appearance before sunrise this month.
With a clear view of the eastern horizon, look for it low in the sky.
It will be highest and easiest to spot during mid-month.
During the final days of the month,
Saturn will cozy up to Mercury just above the eastern horizon.
Use a telescope to try to catch a better view of the planets.
Events
November boasts the Leonid meteor shower.
This shower is the result of Earth’s annual passage
through the dust trails left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle,
which returns to the inner solar system every 33 years.
Look for meteors on the evening of November 17th
and early morning of November 18th, when the peak occurs.
Expect to see as many as 40 meteors per hour in dark skies.
A relatively rare hybrid solar eclipse
will darken areas of the mid-Atlantic ocean and central Africa.
A hybrid eclipse can be either a total or an annular eclipse,
depending on the observer's location.
The night sky is always a celestial showcase.
Explore its wonders from your own backyard.