Mercury is at a greatest eastern elongation of 23 degrees on Nov. 11 at -0.2 magnitude, but it is putting in its poorest evening appearance of the year for our latitude. You may be able to find it with binoculars low in the southwest about 40 minutes after sunset on Nov. 10 through 15, but it is never as far above the horizon as 3 degrees.
Venus is too close to Sun to see until the end of December. Then it returns to the evening sky where it will be visible into the summer.
Mars rose at 2:18 a.m. this morning. It moves from Leo into Virgo this month, brightening from 1.6 to 1.4 magnitudes. At month's end Mars rises at 1:49 a.m.
Jupiter is the brightest star-like object in the nighttime sky. It fades by 0.2 magnitude to -2.5 magnitudes this month. Look for it in Aquarius, under the western fish of Pisces. Jupiter is stationary on Nov. 13, ending 4 months of retrograde motion and resuming its normal, west-to-east prograde motion.
Saturn is up nearly all night at the beginning of November. It spends the month in Pisces, near
the "knot" in the rope connecting the two fish. By the end of the month the ringed planet is well up
as the sky darkens. It fades from 0.0 to 0.2 magnitude this month.
| Nov. | 3 | Moon reaches perigee, its least distance from Earth, about 8 p.m. when its distance is 356,614 km (55.9 Earth radii). This is the closest Moon comes to Earth this year. |
| Nov. | 4 | Moon is full at 12:18 a.m. Since this is the next full moon after the Harvest Moon, it is the Hunter's Moon. Because it is full only about 5 hours after being at such a small perigee distance, spring tides in coastal areas will be higher than usual this morning. |
| Nov. | 5 | Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus the Bull, is occulted by Moon just after moonrise tonight. In Morgantown, the star disappears behind the bright limb of the waning gibbous moon about 7:21 p.m., only 4 degrees above the horizon. It emerges from behind Moon's dark limb about 7:55 p.m., 10 degrees above the horizon. |
| Nov. | 10 | Moon reaches last quarter phase at 7:28 p.m. |
| Nov. | 11 | Mercury is at a greatest eastern elongation about 4 a.m., but this is a very unfavorable apparition for our latitude. |
| Nov. | 13 | Jupiter is stationary about 8 p.m., ending its east-to-west retrograde motion and resuming its usual prograde motion. |
| Nov. | 17 | Moon reaches apogee, its greatest distance from Earth, about 1 a.m. when its distance is 406,493 km (63.7 Earth radii). |
| The Leonid meteor shower is predicted to peak about noon, so before dawn this morning and tomorrow morning may be good times to look for this stream of meteors. This is usually a weak shower, but this year may be different. See accompanying essay. | ||
| Nov. | 18 | At 11:27 p.m. Moon is in conjunction with Sun -- at new phase. |
| Nov. | 26 | Moon reaches eastern quadrature -- first quarter -- at 7:23 p.m. |