Looking in our autumn sky

Hi Sky Friends,

It’s time to look at our sky again and see what we should talk about this month. But that is not entirely true. Except to watch that we don’t trip and fall, we should always try and look up. On my way home from work in the west of the Island the other day, I looked out my car window – and there was a marvellous rainbow that lasted for several minutes. If we don’t look up we will miss so many things that happen in our sky.

Some last all night or day and we get more chance to see them, but others are quite evanescent – a shooting star, a rainbow, a peculiar cloud. So – look – up see what you can see. If you don’t know what something is, ask about it. Come to a community school and learn.

But what shall we look at this month. Let’s try one of my very favorite objects because of its beauty and simplicity – the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, or as I call it, the Tiny Dipper.

So – we have the Big Dipper – which mostly everyone knows and has seen, and also the Little Dipper, very close to the Big Dipper.

But now, the Tiny Dipper is in the Eastern sky in early November. Orion – the Hunter, or Hourglass is just beginning to appear on the eastern horizon if we look at about 8 p.m.

Directly above that, we should see a sideways “V” the horns of Taurus the Bull, and again straight up and a little above the “V”, we should see this “Tiny Dipper”. Where else can you see it? In a stylized fashion, it is the image on the hood ornament of Subaru cars.

The Pleiades is what, in astronomy, is called an Open Cluster, a group of stars occasionally seen, as here, with our naked eye, or more frequently, in binoculars. There are many more of these groups.

If we look at the Seven Sisters with our own eye we will likely see six or seven stars. With binoculars – around 40 and with a telescope up to 100 or 200. So look for the Tiny Dipper (Seven Sisters), and not just on a car.

So besides the Pleiades, what else is in the sky this month. As always, let’s begin with the planets.

Night sky:

Firstly Jupiter – this great planet sets about an hour after the sun as November begins. But by mid November, it is disappearing into the evening sunset. It goes behind the sun (a conjunction) on Nov. 26 and not long after that, reappears as a “morning star”.

Mercury is in our night sky as the month begins. It reaches its greatest distance from the sun – to the left – on Nov. 8. This is a poor apparition of Mercury and it soon sinks lower and passes between the earth and the sun (another conjunction) on Nov. 27.

Saturn is still “hanging in”. It’s still reasonably easy to see. Look in the Southwest. It sets at first November by a good three hours after the sun and by month’s end, still sets 2 hours after sunset.

Mars, which is still up there in the sky, is slowly getting dimmer and dimmer as it travels further away from us. It’s high in the sky in the south, one hour after sunset and sets near midnight all month.

Venus reigns supreme in the pre-dawn hours at the beginning of the month only about 35 minutes before the sun but by the end of the month it is three and quater hours ahead of sunrise. It will be very bright. It will be rising in the Southeast.

New Moon – Nov. 7.

Full Moon – Nov. 23 – It is called Frosty Moon or Beaver Moon this month.

Again look for the Pleiades – and the horns of Taurus the Bull. Can’t miss.

See you next month.

Your Sky Guy,

Dr. Rolly Chiasson