Skywatch Line for Friday, November 7, through Sunday, November 9, written by Sam Salem
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, November 7, through Sunday, November 9, written by Sam Salem.
On Friday, Sun rises at 6:37am and sets at 4:40pm; Moon sets at 9:33am and rises at 6:03pm.
On Friday evening, the waning gibbous Moon will be surrounded by Jupiter and the bright stars Capella, Betelgeuse, and Aldebaran in constellations Auriga, Orion, and Taurus.
On Sunday, the waning gibbous Moon rises around 9pm. Jupiter follows it up a half hour later, about 4° to the Moon’s lower right. Pollux and Castor are to the Moon’s upper left.
Venus, magnitude –3.9, rises in the east during early dawn, a bit more than an hour before sunrise. It’s getting lower every week. On Saturday night, Venus and Spica have widened to 9° apart, almost a fist at arm’s length. Spica is 100 times fainter than Venus.
Jupiter, magnitude –2.3 in eastern Gemini, rises in the east-northeast around 10pm. It dominates the east, then the southeast, as late night advances. Castor and Pollux shine upper left of it, then above it by the beginning of dawn. At that time the three stand very high in the south, with Procyon below them and Orion standing upright farther to their lower right.
Saturn, magnitude +0.9 at the Aquarius-Pisces border, is the brightest object high in the southeast at nightfall. Find the Great Square of Pegasus upper left of it early in the evening and straight above it by the time Saturn transits the meridian. Saturn’s rings are now very nearly edge-on, looking in a telescope like a long, faint needle piercing a bright cheeseball. Their shadow on the planet is a stark black line along its equator.
On Friday, Algol again dips to its minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for about two hours centered earlier this time: at 7:01pm. Every Algol dip happens three hours earlier than the previous one three days before.
M103 contains a few dozen bright stars. At some 8,000 to 9,000 light-years from Earth, it’s one of the more distant open clusters that appears on Messier’s list. Look for the prominent “W” or “M” shape of Cassiopeia in the night sky. Identify the star Ruchbah, also known as Delta Cassiopeiae, which is the star that forms one of the points in the “W” shape. From Ruchbah, move approximately one degree to the east, or “outward” from the “W”. Center this star in binoculars or a small telescope, then move 1° northeast to your target. Spanning about 6’ on the sky, M103 contains a few dozen bright stars.
In binoculars, M103 will appear as a small, fuzzy or hazy patch of light in your field of view. A small telescope will reveal more stars, including a distinctive fan shape. Note the bright red giant in the rough center of this cluster. Its hue may appear red or orange compared with the blue-white stars around it.