The Celestial Aquarium
Thursday’s full moon is known as the Beaver Moon or the Frosty Moon. It rises around sunset and sets around sunrise. Friday and Saturday the moon is with Taurus, the bull’s red eye Aldebaran high to the left and the Pleiades star cluster higher still. Monday night look for the moon near the Gemini twins Castor and Pollux.
Mercury is at the tail end of its best pre-dawn appearance of the year. The innermost planet rises in the east-southeast around 5:30 at week’s end and is 10 degrees above the horizon as daybreak approaches. Mercury outshines any nearby stars, but that doesn’t make it easier to spot, but binoculars will help you find it tight against the horizon. Don’t confuse it with Spica a bit higher and to the right or with golden Arcturus much higher and to the left.
You shouldn’t have any trouble spotting Jupiter before dawn. The gaseous giant rises before midnight and is almost directly overhead before sunrise. The bright star to its lower left is Regulus, the heart of Leo the lion. With Venus hidden behind the sun, only the moon outshines Jupiter in our night skies. You can compare the two between sunset Wednesday and sunrise Thursday the 13th, when the waning gibbous moon is within 10 degrees of Jupiter.
The only other planet visible is Mars low in the southwest as evening twilight gives way to darkness.
Early November marks the peak of two meteor showers, the South Taurids November 5-6 and the North Taurids November 11-12. Neither is a prolific shower, and both suffer the moon’s bright glare. But they both have staying power, producing a meteor here, a meteor there for days. Better yet, every now and then these slow movers burst aflame, crossing the sky as fireballs.
Glance to the south after sunset this time of year and you’re not likely to see much except one bright, blue-white star known as the Lonely One. Fomalhaut appears all the brighter due to the company it keeps. Part of Pisces Austrinus, the Southern Fish, Fomalhaut is the only first-magnitude star amid autumn’s dim, ethereal, water constellations. Only after your eyes have had a chance to adapt to the darkness will you see the creatures within this celestial aquarium: Pisces the fish, Cetus the whale, Aquarius the water carrier, Capricornus the sea goat and Delphinus the dolphin.