The Night Sky November 2011

Highlights of the Month

November 11th - 1 hr before Dawn: Mars just 1.3 degrees from Regulus in Leo

Mars is passing through Leo this month and on the morning of the 11th passes close to Regulus in the constellation Leo. It remains with a couple of degrees of Regulus for 5 days around this date.

November 16th/17th - late evening : The Leonid Meteor Shower

Every year, on the nights of November 16th and 17th, the Earth passed close to the trails of cometry debris from Comet Temple-Tuttle which produce the annual Leonid Meteor shower.  The wonderful image shows one of the 2001 Leonids burning up in the atmosphere as it crossed the constellation of Orion.  Sadly, this year, there will be a bright waning gibbous moon in the eastern sky so moonlight will reduce the number of meteors that will be seen.   The best time to observe them will be after 11 pm before the Moon has risen high into the sky.   The dust particles that are swept up by the Earth are released as Comet Temple-Tuttle rounds the Sun every 33 years.   As implied by the name, the radiant of the shower - from where the meteors appear to radiate from - lies within the head or Sickle of the constellation Leo the Lion.

November 22nd - 1 hr before Dawn: Saturn, Spica and a thin waning crescent Moon.

This month Saturn, in the constellation Virgo, returns to our pre-dawn skies and will make a nice grouping with Spica and a thin waning crescent Moon on the morning of the 22nd of November.

November 27th: Venus and a thin crescent Moon.

After sunset at about 4:40 PM on the 27th, you may, given a low south western horizon and clear skies, be able to spot Venus, at magnitude -3.9 down to the lower right of a two and a half day old Moon.   Look out for the "earthshine" illuminating the "dark side" of the Moon - often called the "old Moon in the new Moon's arms".

November 20th - 27th : Search for Neptune - with no Moon in the sky.

Neptune, with a magnitude of 7.8 should be easily seen in binoculars under a dark, early evening, sky.   It lies due south at 6pm GMT on the 22nd a few days before new Moon.  Neptune lies about 1.6 degrees above the star Iota Aquarii as shown on the chart.   Iota Aquarii can be found by moving 5 degrees to the left and slightly upwards from the star Delta Capricorni.   On the 22nd, Neptune is seen in its discovery position in 1846!

November 20th-27th, mid evening: use binoculars to spot Comet Garradd

At around magnitude 6, Comet Garradd continues to visible in binoculars this month and can be seen in the north-west during November.   It will be easiest to spot around the time of new Moon not far from the star Alpha Hercules down to the lower left of the Keystone.   Due to its orbit and distance from the Earth, its position changes very little during the month.   The fact that its closest approach to the Sun is about the distance of Mars means that its velocity is far less that comets that come close to the Sun and this also helps to reduce the apparent motion across the sky.   As with many new comets these days, it was discovered when searching for near-earth objects (those that could impact the Earth and thus pose a threat), in this case by Gordon J, Garradd at the Siding Springs Observatory in Australia.

Why not find the Globular Cluster M13 as well.   Its location is also shown on the chart.

November 20th-28th, mid to late evening: use binoculars to observe asteroid Eunomia.

During November the asteroid no 15, Eunomia, comes closest to the Earth and, at around magnitude 8, should be visible in binoculars or a small telescope.   It is passing through Perseus which, lying below Cassiopeia rises high into the eastern sky this month.   On the 28th it passes almost overhead and will lie in front of the California Nebula - which shows well on photgraphs but is very hard to see visually.   One way to be sure that you have seen it is to sketch of photograph the star field on a couple of nightsand see which object as moved.   If you have made two images you can flip between them to spot the movement across the sky.

Find M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy - and perhaps M33 in Triangulum

In the evening, the galaxy M31 in Andromeda is visible in the south-east. The chart provides two ways of finding it:

1) Find the square of Pegasus.  Start at the top left star of the square - Alpha Andromedae - and move two stars to the left and up a bit.  Then turn 90 degrees to the right, move up to one reasonably bright star and continue a similar distance in the same direction.  You should easily spot M31 with binoculars and, if there is a dark sky, you can even see it with your unaided eye.   The photons that are falling on your retina left Andromeda well over two million years ago!

2) You can also find M31 by following the "arrow" made by the three rightmost bright stars of Cassiopeia down to the lower right as shown on the chart.

Around new Moon (20th - 29st Nov) you may also be able to spot M33, the third largest galaxy after M31 and our own galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies.   It is a face on spiral and its surface brightness is pretty low so a dark, transparent sky will be needed to spot it using binoculars (8x40 or, preferably, 10x50).   Follow the two stars back from M31 and continue in the same direction sweeping slowly as you go.   It looks like a piece of tissue paper stuck on the sky just a bit brighter than the sky background.   Good Hunting!

November: Look for the Great Red Spot on Jupiter

This list gives some the best times during November to observe the Great Red Spot which should then lie on the central meridian of the planet.

1st   21:15       23rd 19:15

6th   20:15       25th 21:00

10th 23:30       27th 22:30

13th 21:15       30th 20:00

15th 22:45

18th 20:15

20th 22:00

Learn the Mare on the Moon.

Why not use the annotated image of the full Moon to learn the locations of the Moon's Mare.  You can see some of them with your unaided eye and binoculars will enable you to spot them all.

November, around new Moon: Observe the planet Uranus

November is still a good month to find the planet Uranus.   With a magnitude of +5.8 you might even be able to spot it with your unaided eye, and it is an easy object in binoculars.   It lies is Pisces about 15 degrees below the eastern side of the Square of Pegasus as shown on the chart.   With a small telescope you may even see that it has a disk - now around 3.7 arc seconds across - which is a very attractive blue-green colour.

NGC 891 imaged with the Faulkes Telescope

Planetary Nebula M82, imaged by Daniel Duggan.
This image was taken using the Faulkes Telescope North by Daniel Duggan - for some time a member of the Faulkes telescope team.   NGC 891 is an edge-on spiral lying in the constellation Andromeda at a distance of 27 million light years.   We think that this is very much as our own galaxy might look when seen edge-on.

Learn more about the Faulkes Telescopes and how schools can use them: Faulkes Telescope"

Observe the International Space Station

Use the link below to find when the space station will be visible in the next few days. In general, the space station can be seen either in the hour or so before dawn or the hour or so after sunset - this is because it is dark and yet the Sun is not too far below the horizon so that it can light up the space station. As the orbit only just gets up the the latitude of the UK it will usually be seen to the south, and is only visible for a minute or so at each sighting. Note that as it is in low-earth orbit the sighting details vary quite considerably across the UK. The NASA website linked to below gives details for several cities in the UK. (Across the world too for foreign visitors to this web page.)

Note: I observed the ISS three times recently and was amazed as to how bright it has become.

Find details of sighting possibilities from your location from: Location Index

See where the space station is now: Current Position

The Evening November Sky

This map shows the constellations seen towards the south in early evening. To the south in early evening moving over to the west as the night progresses is the beautiful region of the Milky Way containing both Cygnus and Lyra. Below is Aquilla. The three bright stars Deneb (in Cygnus), Vega (in Lyra) and Altair (in Aquila) make up the "Summer Triangle". East of Cygnus is the great square of Pegasus - adjacent to Andromeda in which lies M31, the Andromeda Nebula. To the north lies "w" shaped Cassiopeia and Perseus. The constellation Taurus, with its two lovely clusters, the Hyades and Pleiades is rising in the east during the late evening.

The constellations Lyra and Cygnus

This month the constellations Lyra and Cygnus are seen almost overhead as darkness falls with their bright stars Vega, in Lyra, and Deneb, in Cygnus, making up the "summer triangle" of bright stars with Altair in the constellation Aquila below. (see sky chart above)

Lyra

Lyra is dominated by its brightest star Vega, the fifth brightest star in the sky. It is a blue-white star having a magnitude of 0.03, and lies 26 light years away. It weighs three times more than the Sun and is about 50 times brighter. It is thus burning up its nuclear fuel at a greater rate than the Sun and so will shine for a correspondingly shorter time. Vega is much younger than the Sun, perhaps only a few hundred million years old, and is surrounded by a cold,dark disc of dust in which an embryonic solar system is being formed!

There is a lovely double star called Epsilon Lyrae up and to the left of Vega. A pair of binoculars will show them up easily - you might even see them both with your unaided eye. In fact a telescope, provided the atmosphere is calm, shows that each of the two stars that you can see is a double star as well so it is called the double double!

Between Beta and Gamma Lyra lies a beautiful object called the Ring Nebula. It is the 57th object in the Messier Catalogue and so is also called M57. Such objects are called planetary nebulae as in a telescope they show a disc, rather like a planet. But in fact they are the remnants of stars, similar to our Sun, that have come to the end of their life and have blown off a shell of dust and gas around them. The Ring Nebula looks like a greenish smoke ring in a small telescope, but is not as impressive as it is shown in photographs in which you can also see the faint central "white dwarf" star which is the core of the original star which has collapsed down to about the size of the Earth. Still very hot this shines with a blue-white colour, but is cooling down and will eventually become dark and invisible - a "black dwarf"! Do click on the image below to see the large version - its wonderful!

M56 is an 8th magnitude Globular Cluster visible in binoculars roughly half way between Albireo (the head of the Swan) and Gamma Lyrae. It is 33,000 light years away and has a diameter of about 60 light years. It was first seen by Charles Messier in 1779 and became the 56th entry into his catalogue.

Cygnus

Cygnus, the Swan, is sometimes called the "Northern Cross" as it has a distinctive cross shape, but we normally think of it as a flying Swan. Deneb,the arabic word for "tail", is a 1.3 magnitude star which marks the tail of the swan. It is nearly 2000 light years away and appears so bright only because it gives out around 80,000 times as much light as our Sun. In fact if Deneb where as close as the brightest star in the northern sky, Sirius, it would appear as brilliant as the half moon and the sky would never be really dark when it was above the horizon!

The star, Albireo, which marks the head of the Swan is much fainter, but a beautiful sight in a small telescope. This shows that Albireo is made of two stars, amber and blue-green, which provide a wonderful colour contrast. With magnitudes 3.1 and 5.1 they are regarded as the most beautiful double star that can be seen in the sky.

Cygnus lies along the line of the Milky Way, the disk of our own Galaxy, and provides a wealth of stars and clusters to observe. Just to the left of the line joining Deneb and Sadr, the star at the centre of the outstretched wings, you may, under very clear dark skys, see a region which is darker than the surroundings. This is called the Cygnus Rift and is caused by the obscuration of light from distant stars by a lane of dust in our local spiral arm. the dust comes from elements such as carbon which have been built up in stars and ejected into space in explosions that give rise to objects such as the planetary nebula M57 described above.

There is a beautiful region of nebulosity up and to the left of Deneb which is visible with binoculars in a very dark and clear sky. Photographs show an outline that looks like North America - hence its name the North America Nebula. Just to its right is a less bright region that looks like a Pelican, with a long beak and dark eye, so not surprisingly this is called the Pelican Nebula. The photograph below shows them well.

Brocchi's Cluster An easy object to spot with binoculars in Gygnus is "Brocchi's Cluster", often called "The Coathanger",although it appears upside down in the sky! Follow down the neck of the swan to the star Albireo, then sweep down and to its lower left. You should easily spot it against the dark dust lane behind.

The constellations Pegasus and Andromeda

Pegasus

The Square of Pegasus is in the south during the evening and forms the body of the winged horse. The square is marked by 4 stars of 2nd and 3rd magnitude, with the top left hand one actually forming part of the constellation Andromeda. The sides of the square are almost 15 degrees across, about the width of a clentched fist, but it contains few stars visibe to the naked eye. If you can see 5 then you know that the sky is both dark and transparent! Three stars drop down to the right of the bottom right hand corner of the square marked by Alpha Pegasi, Markab. A brighter star Epsilon Pegasi is then a little up to the right, at 2nd magnitude the brightest star in this part of the sky. A little further up and to the right is the Globular Cluster M15. It is just too faint to be seen with the naked eye, but binoculars show it clearly as a fuzzy patch of light just to the right of a 6th magnitude star.

Andromeda

The stars of Andromeda arc up and to the left of the top left star of the square, Sirra or Alpha Andromedae. The most dramatic object in this constellation is M31, the Andromeda Nebula. It is a great spiral galaxy, similar to, but somewhat larger than, our galaxy and lies about 2.5 million light years from us. It can be seen with the naked eye as a faint elliptical glow as long as the sky is reasonably clear and dark. Move up and to the left two stars from Sirra, these are Pi amd Mu Andromedae. Then move your view through a rightangle to the right of Mu by about one field of view of a pair of binoculars and you should be able to see it easily. M31 contains about twice as many stars as our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and together they are the two largest members of our own Local Group of about 3 dozen galaxies.

M33 in Triangulum

If, using something like 8 by 40 binoculars, you have seen M31 as described above, it might well be worth searching for M33 in Triangulum. Triangulum is

the small faint constellation just below Andromeda. Start on M31, drop down to Mu Andromedae and keep on going in the same direction by the same distance as you have moved from M31 to Mu Andromedae. Under excellent seeing conditions (ie., very dark and clear skies) you should be able to see what looks like a little piece of tissue paper stuck on the sky or a faint cloud. It appears to have uniform brightness and shows no structure. The shape is irregular in outline - by no means oval in shape and covers an area about twice the size of the Moon. It is said that it is just visible to the unaided eye, so it the most distant object in the Universe that the eye can see. The distance is now thought to be 3.0 Million light years - just greater than that of M31.

The constellation Taurus

Taurus is one of the most beautiful constellations and you can almost imagine the Bull charging down to the left towards Orion. His face is delineated by the "V" shaped cluster of stars called the Hyades, his eye is the red giant star Aldebaran and the tips of his horns are shown by the stars beta and zeta Tauri. Although alpha Tauri, Aldebaran, appears to lie amongst the stars of the Hyades cluster it is, in fact, less than half their distance lying 68 light years away from us. It is around 40 times the diameter of our Sun and 100 times as bright.

More beautiful images by Alson Wong : Astrophotography by Alson Wong

To the upper right of Taurus lies the open cluster, M45, the Pleiades. Often called the Seven Sisters, it is one of the brightest and closest open clusters. The Pleiades cluster lies at a distance of 400 light years and contains over 3000 stars. The cluster, which is about 13 light years across, is moving towards the star Betelgeuse in Orion. Surrounding the brightest stars are seen blue reflection nebulae caused by reflected light from many small carbon grains. These relfection nebulae look blue as the dust grains scatter blue light more efficiently than red. The grains form part of a molecular cloud through which the cluster is currently passing. (Or, to be more precise, did 400 years ago!)

Close to the tip of the left hand horn lies the Crab Nebula, also called M1 as it is the first entry of Charles Messier's catalogue of nebulous objects. Lying 6500 light years from the Sun, it is the remains of a giant star that was seen to explode as a supernova in the year 1056. It may just be glimpsed with binoculars on a very clear dark night and a telescope will show it as a misty blur of light.

Its name "The Crab Nebula" was given to it by the Third Earl of Rosse who observed it with the 72 inch reflector at Birr Castle in County Offaly in central Ireland. As shown in the drawing above, it appeared to him rather lile a spider crab. The 72 inch was the world's largest telelescope for many years. At the heart of the Crab Nebula is a neutron star, the result of the collapse of the original star's core. Although only around 20 km in diameter it weighs more than our Sun and is spinning 30 times a second. Its rotating magnetic field generate beams of light and radio waves which sweep across the sky. As a result, a radio telescope will pick up very regular pulses of radiation and the object is thus also known a Pulsar. Its pulses are monitored each day at Jodrell Bank with a 13m radio telescope.