Skywatch Line for Friday, November 8, through Sunday, November 10, written by Sam Salem
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, November 8, through Sunday, November 10, written by Sam Salem.
On Friday, Sun rises at 6:38am and sets at 4:40pm; Moon rises at 12:32pm and sets at 9:26pm.
The 1st quarter Moon occurs on Saturday. The 1st quarter Moon rises around noon and sets around midnight.
The waxing gibbous Moon will hang near Saturn in the east after sunset on Sunday. The bright star Fomalhaut, the loneliest star, is nearby. They’ll set about an hour after midnight. The Saturn rings are closing now. By March of 2025, they’ll be so perfectly edgewise that, for a time, they’ll disappear.
Saturn, magnitude +0.8 in the constellation of Aquarius, glows high in the southeast as the stars come out. Fomalhaut twinkling two fists to its lower right. Saturn stands highest in the south by 8 pm., with Fomalhaut now directly under it.
On Friday evening, the shadow of Jupiter’s moon Io crosses the planet’s face from 8:51 to 11:03 pm, followed by Io itself from 9:34 to 11:45 pm. Meanwhile, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot should cross the planet’s central meridian around 10:19 pm. The spot should be visible with about the same degree of difficulty for an hour before and after.
Jupiter, magnitude –2.7, still near the horn-tips of Taurus, rises in the east-northeast shortly after dark. It’s highest toward the south in the hours after midnight. Jupiter is now a nice 46 arcseconds wide in a telescope, essentially as large as the 48-arcsecond width it will attain for the weeks around its opposition in early December.
Venus, magnitude –4.0, gleams low in the southwest in evening twilight, noticeably higher every week now. It doesn’t set until about a half hour after the end of twilight.
Mars, magnitude 0.0, in eastern constellation of Gemini, rises around 10 pm. It shows best, very high in the south, in the hour or more before the start of dawn. It’s about 40° east along the ecliptic from bright Jupiter. Mars in a telescope has enlarged to 10 arcseconds in apparent diameter, the size that amateur visual observers have traditionally called big enough to make markings on Mars decently visible even in good seeing. Mars is on its way to a relatively distant opposition next January, when it will reach an apparent diameter of only 14.5 arcseconds.
Around 9 pm., zero-magnitude Capella, the Winter star, climbs exactly as high in the northeast as zero-magnitude Vega, the Summer Star, has sunk in the west-northwest.
Capella shines low in the northeast. Look for the Pleiades almost three fists to Capella’s right. As evening grows later, you’ll find orange Aldebaran climbing up beneath the Pleiades by about a fist or a little more. Jupiter will make its appearance left or lower left of Aldebaran. By about 9 pm., Orion will be clearing the east horizon far below them.