Skywatch Line for Friday, November 15, through Sunday, November 17, written by Sam Salem
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, November 15, through Sunday, November 17, written by Sam Salem.
On Friday, Sun rises at 6:48am and sets at 4:32pm; Moon sets at 6:32am and rises at 4:06pm.
The full Moon occurs at 4:29 p.m. on Friday. Full Moon rises opposite the sunset. It is highest in the sky at midnight and lies low on the western horizon opposite the sunrise. This is the 4th supermoon in a row. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, this full Moon carries the name Beaver Moon. Jupiter will lie near the bright Super Beaver Moon. The delicate Pleiades star cluster will be close to the Moon that night. Cover the Moon with your finger to block its dazzling glare. Look for the orange star Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus the Bull, close to Jupiter.
On Saturday and Sunday evenings, the waning gibbous Moon will slide between Jupiter and Capella, the brightest star in Auriga the Charioteer. Near Jupiter lies the giant star Aldebaran. The shimmering glow of the Pleiades star cluster will be nearby. They’ll rise shortly after sunset and be visible through dawn. Watch the Moon move closer to Jupiter all through the night.
The Leonid meteor shower should peak late on Saturday night, but the brilliant moonlight will interfere. The Leonids have been weak to begin with for the last decade or more.
By about 8 p.m. Orion is clearing the eastern horizon. High above Orion shine Jupiter and, to Jupiter’s right or upper right, orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran are Pleiades, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. Far left of Aldebaran and the Pleiades shines bright Capella. Down below Orion, Sirius rises around 10 p.m. No matter where they are, Sirius always follows two hours behind Orion. Or equivalently, one month behind Orion.
Mercury reaches its farthest angular distance from the Sun at 3 a.m. on Saturday. At that time, Mercury will be 23 degrees from the Sun in our sky.
Mercury is still deep in the afterglow of sunset this week and next, even though these are the best two weeks of its current evening apparition.
Venus, magnitude –4.1, gleams in the southwest in evening twilight, higher every week now. It doesn’t set until about 45 minutes after the end of twilight.
Mars, magnitude –0.1 in Cancer east of Gemini, rises in the east-northeast around 9p.m. at almost the precise point where Jupiter rose 3¼ hours earlier. Mars shows best in a telescope when very high toward the south in the hour or two before the start of dawn. Mars has enlarged to about 10.2 arcseconds in apparent diameter. It’s on its way to a relatively distant opposition in January, when it will reach an apparent diameter of 14.5 arcseconds.