{"id":692,"date":"2021-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=692"},"modified":"2021-11-04T16:00:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T16:00:26","slug":"november-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/november-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"November 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In case you want\nto know which way it is to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, look\nat Venus in the southwest just after sunset on November 1. It’s\nalmost in our line of sight to the galactic center. The planet is\nabout five minutes, 21 seconds of light time from us. It appears\nabout 2\u00b0 north of Sagittarius A, the radio source star close to the\ngalactic center about 26,000 light years distant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Venus<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Venus\nscoots north of Alnasl in the first week of the month. A young moon\nis ready to pass the planet on the 7th<\/sup>.\nAnd on the 8th<\/sup>,\nit has. On the evening of the 11th<\/sup>,\nthe love goddess planet is between two of the archer’s bow stars,\nKaus Borealis and Kaus Media, respectively the northern and middle\nbow stars. The planet is already passing close by Namalsadira I\u2014about\n0.25\u00b0 away\u2014on the 16th<\/sup>.\nAnd if that’s not impressive enough, see Venus even closer to Nunki\nthree evenings later! Separation will be 0.2\u00b0. Think of the close\ncall\u20140.4\u00b0–with Al Kiladah on the 25th<\/sup>\nas a sort of encore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Venus<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe month ends, Venus is clearly done traversing the teapot. By that\ntime, you’ll see that it’s getting close to Jupiter and Saturn which\nare still hanging out in Capricornus. Saturn is moving eastward in\nthe western part of the constellation this month. Jupiter spends the\nfirst half of November in an acute triangle with Deneb Algedi and\nNashira. It’s a right triangle on the 16th<\/sup>\nas the planet moves eastward. Jupiter remaining in direct motion, the\ntriangle is obtuse the rest of the month. While these movements\nhappen, see the approximately first quarter moon near Saturn on the\n10th<\/sup>\nand Jupiter on the 11th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mercury<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mercury\nis a morning object as November starts. See an aging crescent moon\nhigh above it in the east before sunrise on the 1st<\/sup>,\ncloser on the second, and closest to the moon on the 3rd<\/sup>.\nThe messenger planet is close to Spica. Heading quickly eastward and\nsunward, Mercury closes in on Mars a week later, passing by the star\nKang on the 8th<\/sup>.\nThe two planets will be 1\u00b0 apart on the 10th<\/sup>.\nBoth are moving eastward. And neither is going to be easy to see. A\nclear horizon and a clear sky are a must. You may need binoculars or\na telescope to see them. Mercury is headed for superior conjunction\non the 28th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lost\nin the morning light is an even closer appearance of Mars and a dim\nstar named Khambaliya. Heading into Libra, Mars will be even closer\nto Zubenelgenubi on the 22nd<\/sup>.\nThere will be enough darkness for barely long enough to see them very\nclose to the horizon. Mars is in the middle of the Libra diamond at\nmonth’s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ceres, long famous as the first discovered asteroid, crosses the V that is the Hyades. It’s considered a dwarf planet now, but that doesn’t take away from the joy of seeing it and this month provides excellent opportunities. Ceres will be 0.1\u00b0 from Aldebaran on the 3rd. It’ll take until about the 20th to cross the other leg of the V. It’s at opposition on the 27th<\/sup>. That’s close to the time when it’s closest to Earth, so it will be at its brightest. It may be as bright as magnitude 7.0, a binocular object, at that time. There are many stars visible in the Hyades in binoculars. Look each night this month and see which dot has moved among them. (This paragraph has been edited to correct the dates of Ceres’ closeness to Aldebaran and passage through the other side of the Hyades V. I regret the errors.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine being one of the people who saw this object four centuries ago and couldn’t figure out what it is. It’s like a star in that it’s merely a point of light in a telescope. And it’s like a planet in that it moves among the stars. The words asteroid<\/em> and planetoid<\/em> were coined to describe it. But even those words didn’t describe Ceres well after astronomers learned more about it. It’s round like a planet but not massive enough to pull in and fling away lots of other objects near it. So it’s called a dwarf planet now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Uranus\nis also at opposition this month. That will be on the 4th<\/sup>.\nOrbiting farther from the sun than Ceres, its movement is slower. It\ndoesn’t happen to be near any bright stars lately, so viewing it will\nbe more of a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"How<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For\nmany people, the highlight of the month is going to be the nearly\ntotal lunar eclipse. During the event on the 19th<\/sup>,\n97% of the moon’s disk will be in the darkest part of Earth’s shadow.\nIn other words, 97% of what should be the directly lit side of the\nmoon will get the reddish, filtered, and scattered light that passes\nthrough Earth’s atmosphere. The remaining 3% will get sunight\npartially blocked by Earth. Visibility is from nearly all of North\nAmerica, most of the Pacific, and far northeast Asia for the entire\nevent. South America and much of the Atlantic get an eclipse at\nmoonset. It’s a moonrise event for most of Asia and Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Visibility<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\nLeonids meteor shower peaks on the 17th<\/sup>\nand 18th<\/sup>.\nThe moon is nearly full though. Easier viewing could be earlier in\nthe month. The shower has a broad enough peak for a few meteors to\nshow up a week or two before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\nmoon’s circumstances this month: It goes south of the equator on the\n2nd<\/sup>.\nNew moon is on the 4th<\/sup>.\nSouthern lunistice at 26.3\u00b0 is on the 8th<\/sup>,\nfirst quarter is on the 11th<\/sup>,\nand the moon goes north of the equator on the 15th<\/sup>.\nFull moon and the eclipse are on the 19th<\/sup>.\nThe moon’s farthest north at 26.3\u00b0 on the 22nd<\/sup>.\nLast quarter is on the 27th<\/sup>.\nAnd it goes south of the equator again on the 30th<\/sup>.\nLunar perigee is on the 5th<\/sup>\nat 358,900 km. Apogee is on the 21st<\/sup>\nat 406,300 km.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you want to know which way it is to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, look at Venus in the southwest just after sunset on November 1. It’s almost in our line of sight to the galactic center. The planet is about five minutes, 21 seconds of light time from us. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-60"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}