Sunrise and sunset
• Rises at 7:31 a.m. and sets at 5:59 p.m. on the 1st (daylight saving time)
• Rises at 7:03 a.m. and sets at 4:37 p.m. on the 30th (standard time)
Moon’s phases
• Full “Hunter’s Moon” on the 5th
• New Moon on the 20th
Time change
We move for daylight-saving time at 2 a.m. Nov. 2 to standard time. Set the clocks back one hour. The times in this column reflect the change.
Naked-eye planets
As November opens, four bright planets can be found in the evening sky, but two of them — Mercury and Mars — are short-termers.
Mercury floats low above the southwestern horizon shortly after sunset. It resembles a bright star to the right of true star Antares.
Both objects will be difficult to spot at such a low altitude. Mercury sets an hour after the sun on the 1st, but it sinks closer to the sun as the month progresses, reaching inferior conjunction — same side of the sun as Earth — on the 20th.
Mercury then swings swiftly into the dawn sky, rising 1½ hours before sunrise by month’s end.
Mars can be located to the right of Mercury, low in the southwest during evening twilight in early November.
Mars slides just above Mercury on the 12th, but the pair will be hard to view so close to the horizon. Mars is nearing the end of its evening apparition, and is slowly sinking into the dusk glow, setting only a half-hour after sunset by the 30th.
Mars will reach conjunction with the sun on Jan. 9, and will reappear at dawn in late winter 2026.
Two months have elapsed since Saturn’s opposition with the sun, and the Ringed Planet remains in quite favorable position for viewing on November evenings.
Saturn resembles a bright, cream-colored star in Aquarius near the border with Pisces. In mid-November, Saturn stands due south, above the bright star Fomalhaut, at around 8 p.m., and it sets in the west at 3 a.m.
A telescope reveals not only Saturn’s rings and its largest moon Titan, but also the faint, bluish-green world Neptune a few degrees to Saturn’s east, or left.
Majestic golden Jupiter, currently an inhabitant of the superb winter constellation Gemini, peeks above the northeastern horizon around 10:45 p.m. on Nov. 1, and by 7:45 p.m. on the 30th.
Once up, Jupiter easily outshines Gemini’s Pollux and Castor, which hang above it.
In mid-November, Jupiter stands at its highest altitude above the southern horizon at around 4 a.m. Jupiter’s turn at opposition with the sun is still a couple of months away, on Jan. 10.
Venus continues to burn with a yellowish-white radiance low in the east at dawn, but it is getting lower with each passing morning.
Venus rises by 6 a.m. or only 1½ hours before sunrise, on the 1st , but at about 6:15 a.m., or only 45 minutes before sunrise, on the 30th.
Venus will vanish into the morning twilight during December, then slowly reappear in the evening twilight by early 2026.
The Leonid meteor shower is best visible on the night/morning of Nov. 16-17.
Its source is minute particles from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, whose dust trail the Earth will be passing through at that time. The meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Leo. The waning crescent moon that night should not interfere with theviewing.
Stars and constellations
A parade of autumn stars marches across the night sky on chilly November evenings.
With our clocks reverting to standard time on Nov. 2, the sky will now become dark shortly after 5 p.m.
Remarkably, we can still catch the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair high in the west after dusk.
The Great Square of Pegasus, which is made up of four stars — Alpheratz, Markab, Scheat and Algenib — is high in the south by around 8 p.m., while directly below the Great Square’s western edge is the bright whitish star Fomalhaut in Pisces Austrinus, the Southern Fish.
High in the northeast we find another signature constellation of autumn: Cassiopeia, with its unmistakable “W” shape, which, as the sky rotates, is gradually inverting into an “M” shape.
Cassiopeia, like Ursa Major, is a far northern, circumpolar constellation. Rising in the northeast, below Cassiopeia, is Perseus, representing the hero of mythology who rode the winged horse Pegasus and rescued the maiden Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus (the Whale in modern times).
All of these characters are represented as constellations in the autumn sky. Notably, the constellation of Andromeda contains within its borders M31, otherwise known as the Great Galaxy in Andromeda.
M31 can actually be seen as a fuzzy patch with the unaided eye in locations far from light pollution.
The “M” stands for Charles Messier (1730-1817), a French astronomer who searched the sky for comets, which, like planets, travel in elliptical orbits about the sun.
The objects in Messier’s list look fuzzy, like comets, but in reality they are mostly distant nebulae and star clusters. Messier compiled his list so that other comet hunters would not waste their time investigating these non-cometary objects.
The Andromeda Galaxy lies about 2½ million light years from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and is very similar in structure but even larger in size.
November nights provide an excellent opportunity to preview a few of the stars of winter.
Low in the northeast is the bright yellowish-white star Capella, situated in the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer. Due to its highnorthern declination, Capella is often the first of the winter stars to make its appearance.
If you stay up late, Capella will stand overhead around 1 a.m. in mid-November. By February, Capella will pass overhead during theearly evening hours.
Low in the east are the stars of Taurus, the Bull, which contains the bright orangish star Aldebaran. Aldebaran appears to be part of a “V” shaped cluster of stars known as the Hyades.
Even more famous is the Pleiades cluster in Taurus, a compact group of stars shaped like a miniature dipper lying to the upperright of Aldebaran.
Test your smarts
Astronomy question of the month: What is the most common type of star in our region of the Galaxy? (Answer next month)
Answer to October’s question: (Is it true that ancient Mars had oceans of liquid water, and could Mars have harbored life?) Mars today is a frozen desert, with an atmospheric density only 1% that at Earth’s surface. Evidence from recent space missions to Mars, however, points to a warmer, wetter climate, with water on Mars’s surface, including lakes, rivers, and glaciers – but in the distant past, between 3 to 4 billion years ago. There is no evidence of life on Mars today, although NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has uncovered rocks in a dry river channel that may hold potential signs of ancient microbes. But until soil samples are transported toEarth by astronauts or by robotic probes, the question of life on Mars will remain a mystery.
The fine print
• Astronomical information is obtained from The Astronomical Almanac (2021-2025) by Richard J. Bartlett, and from Astronomical Calendar 2025 by Guy Ottewell, available online at www.universalworkshop.com/astronomical-calendar-2025.
• For more information on the night sky, visit the Widener Observatory Stargazing website at www.widener.edu/stargazing.
• A set of free sky maps can be obtained at www.skymaps.com.
Augensen is the director of the Widener University Observatory and emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at Widener University.
