NOVEMBER 2009–OBSERVING HIGHLIGHTS
EARTH SATELLITES:
Moon –
New moon -
16TH
1st Quarter –
24th
Full moon –
2nd
Last quarter
– 9th
Want to know
when the international space station flys over? Then check out
“Spaceweather.com.”
PLANETS:
JUPITER:
Jupiter lies due South and at its highest point in the sky as evening twilight descends. The planet remains 30 degrees altitude until
8:00 PM local time during November’s
first week, but only until 6:30 PM by month’s end. Due to the earth’s
atmosphere, you’ll want to observe Jupiter early. On November 23rd a waxing crescent
moon stands 4 degrees above Jupiter (-2.4), this should be a beautiful
sight.
NEPTUNE:
The gap between Jupiter and Neptune narrows, from 6 degrees to 3 degrees
during November. Neptune lies East of Jupiter until November 19th. To find
Neptune, point your binoculars at
a line of three stars North of Delta Capricorni. The two Northern stars 42 and
44 cap, form the base of a triangle with Neptune at the vertex. Through a telescope Neptune shows its disk
proving you’re looking at a planet, and
not a star.
URANUS:
Find Pisces circlet asterism. Uranus lies 2.4 degrees due South of 14
Pisces . Through a telescope you’ll see a disk showing a blue-green hue.
MARS:
Brigthten to a magnitude 0.0 by late November. Only Sirius and the moon shine brighter. Mars spends November crossing the Eastern
half of Cancer the Crab. On November the
first, it lies near the center of M44 the Beehive Cluster. Mars rises shortly before midnight and the
view improves a few hours later. The
most prominent feature will be the white Northern polar cap.
SATURN:
Rises around 3:30 AM in early November.
By month’s end at twilight it stands halfway to the Zenith. Saturn’s
rings tilt 3.1 degrees to our line of sight on the 1st and by the 31st
they tilt 4.3 degrees.
Don’t forget to
observe Saturn’s moon. The brightest is
8th magnitude Titan, which shows up in any telescope. You’ll need a 6” or bigger telescope to
observe
Saturn’s other moons. Just like Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s moons changes its
position every night.
VENUS:
Venus rises 90 minutes before the sun on November 1st. It shines at magnitude -3.9 and stands 4
degrees North of Virgos’s, Luminary, Spica.
By month’s end the planet rises less than an hour before the sun and
will be hard to see in the bright twilight.
A nearly
full moon shines across the Southern part of the Pleiades star cluster on
November 3rd. Binoculars will
afford the best view.
