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EI2GYB > ASTRO 21.11.22 13:44l 112 Lines 8407 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 18 - 26
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This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 18 - 26
By: Alan MacRobert November 18, 2022
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18
Orion clears the eastern horizon by about 8 or 9 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone. Upper left of Orion, bright Mars glares. Keep going upper left of Mars by a similar amount, and there's Capella.
High straighter above Orion are Aldebaran and, higher still, the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm's length.
Down below Orion, Sirius rises around 10 or 11 p.m. Sirius always follows two hours behind Orion, or equivalently one month behind Orion, as they cross the sky through the night and through the seasons.
Ý The Leonid meteor shower may have a predicted outburst late tonight. The Leonids could put on a show in the early-morning hours of Saturday the 19th for eastern and central North America. Last week's Sky at a Glance had the date wrong (as the 18th); that was the date of the annual normal, weak maximum.
Meteor-shower analyst Mikhail Maslow predicts a possible outburst of up to 250 or 300 meteors per hour visible starting around 1 a.m. EST Saturday morning (6:00 UT), good timing for eastern North America. The farther east you are the better. The shower's radiant, near the Sickle of Leo, will be well up by then for the East Coast and will climb higher into dawn. The light of the Moon, two days day past first quarter, will interfere to some degree.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19
Ý Whenever Fomalhaut is culminating (crossing the meridian due south, which it does around 7 p.m. this week), the Pointer stars of the Big Dipper stand upright low due north, straight below Polaris.
Also at that time, the first stars of Orion are soon to rise above the east horizon (for the world's mid-northern latitudes). Starting with the rise of Betelgeuse, it takes Orion's main figure a little more than an hour to completely clear the horizon.
Ý Algol in Perseus should be at its minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on 10:25 p.m. EST; 7:25 p.m. PST.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20
Ý With the Moon gone from the evening sky, you've got your darkest evenings for deep-sky hunting. Have you been to the Perseus Double Cluster over and over? It's always a delight... but why not try for some lesser-known open clusters, each of them different, and some interesting double stars farther south in Perseus? Use Ken Hewitt-White's "Off the Beaten Track in Perseus" article, chart, and pix in the November Sky & Telescope, page 54.
Ý Do you get up very early on Monday morning? Before dawn grows bright, spot the waning crescent Moon low in the east-southeast with 1st-magnitude Spica sparkling 4ø or 5ø to its upper right, as shown below.
If you're early enough and get ambitious, above Spica by about a fist and a half is 3rd-magnitude Gamma Virginis, a close, equal double star for telescopes. Its current separation is 3.25 arcseconds. Its two F0 suns are aligned north-south.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21
Ý Vega is the brightest star high in the west after dark. Close by it are three interesting double stars for binoculars and telescopes.
Just above Vega, spot 4th-magnitude Epsilon Lyrae, the Double-Double. Epsilon forms one corner of a roughly equilateral little triangle with Vega and Zeta Lyrae. The triangle is less than 2ø on a side, hardly the width of your thumb at arm's length.
Binoculars easily resolve Epsilon. And a 4-inch telescope at 120ž or more should, during good seeing, resolve each of Epsilon's wide components into a tight pair.
Zeta too is a double. This pair is much closer and appears single in most binoculars, but a telescope plainly resolves it.
Delta Lyrae, upper left of Zeta by a similar distance, is a much wider and easier binocular pair. Its stars are reddish orange and blue.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
Ý Jupiter's Great Red Spot should transit the planet's central meridian around 9:52 p.m. EST; 6:52 p.m. PST.
Ý Algol should be at its minimum brightness for a couple hours centered on 7:14 p.m. EST. It will take several additional hours to fully rebrighten.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23
Ý New Moon (exact at 5:57 p.m. EST).
Ý This is the time of year when the Great Square of Pegasus floats highest overhead in early evening. Look for it above Jupiter. Your fist at arm's length fits inside it.
The western (right) side of the Great Square points far down almost to Fomalhaut in the south. Its eastern side points down less directly toward Beta Ceti (Diphda), less far below.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24
Ý Does the Sun already seem to be setting about as early as it ever will? You're right! We're still nearly a month from the winter solstice - but the Sun sets its earliest around December 7th if you live near latitude 40ø north, and already the Sun sets within only 3 minutes of that time.
A surprising result of this: The Sun actually sets a trace earlier on Thanksgiving than on Christmas - even though Christmas is around solstice time!
But once again, in celestial mechanics every seeming abnormality is balanced out by an equal abnormality somewhere else. The offset of the earliest sunset from the solstice date is balanced out by the opposite happening at sunrise: The Sun doesn't come up its latest until January 4th. All this is due to the tilt of Earth's axis and the eccentricity of Earth's orbit.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25
Ý Now that the Pleiades and (below them) Aldebaran are shining due east after dark, can Orion be far behind? Orion's entire iconic figure, formed by its brightest seven stars, takes about an hour and a quarter to clear the eastern horizon. By roughly 8 p.m. it's just about made it, as shown below. By 10 it's up in fine, pre-winter view.
Ý Using a telescope, watch for Jupiter's moon Io to slowly reappear from behind Jupiter's eastern limb around 7:11 p.m. EST, soon after dark in the Eastern time zone. Then Europa does the same around 10:41 p.m. EST, better timing for the rest of North America.
Watch for each to gradually appear as a tiny bump on Jupiter's shimmering limb, then bud off and separate into open space.
Meanwhile, Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross the planet's central meridian around 7:22 p.m. EST. Fifty minutes later it's already halfway to the preceding (celestial west) limb. Jupiter rotates fast.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26
Ý The bowl of the Little Dipper swings down in the evening at this time of year, left or lower left of Polaris due north. The rest of the Little Dipper is dim. By about 11 p.m. this week it hangs straight down from Polaris.
Ý Two faint fuzzies naked-eye: The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Perseus Double Cluster are two of the most famous deep-sky objects. They're both cataloged as 4th magnitude, and in a fairly good sky you can see each with the unaided eye. Binoculars make them easier. They're located only 22ø apart, very high toward the east early these evenings - to the right of Cassiopeia and closer below Cassiopeia, respectively.
But they look rather different, the more so the darker your sky. See for yourself. You can find them with the all-sky constellation map in the center of the November or December Sky & Telescope.
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