ASTEROID AND METEOR ENCOUNTERS AWAIT

South Taurid and Leonids showers to rain down this month, Andrew Fazekas writes.

As chilly weather sets in, skywatchers can hunt down a giant asteroid and gaze at a double stream of bright meteors pulled apart by Jupiter’s massive gravitational field. In the later half of the first week of November, start looking for a trickle of shooting stars originating from the South Taurid Meteor Shower that runs through Nov. 12. The individual streaks of light appear to radiate out from the shower’s namesake constellation Taurus, which will be riding high in the south during the overnight hours. The constellation will then slowly glide into the eastern sky by the pre-dawn hours. Expect low hourly rates of no more than 10 shooting stars. While this shower is really more of a trickle, it makes up for the lack of meteors with their dazzling brightness. Taurids are known to be larger than average meteors and produce visually impressive fireballs. On Nov. 11, the moon will pose with the crown jewel of the solar system, the ringed world Saturn. Look to the low southwest an hour after local sunset for the crescent moon pairing up with yellow coloured Saturn. Even the smallest telescope trained on this bright yellow “star” will reveal the planet’s famous rings and even a couple of its largest and brightest moons. The moon will then glide next to the orange-hued Mars on Nov. 15. About a half-hour after sunset, look halfway up the southern sky for Mars pairing up with the waxing gibbous Moon. The two objects will only be three degrees apart — a separation equal to the width of your three middle fingers held at arm’s length. Telescope observers will get their best views of Mars’ surface features in the next few weeks before its disk shrinks. Peaking on Nov. 17, the annual Leonids meteor shower has a long, rich history with some years producing a true flurry of shooting stars. Wait late into the night on Nov. 17 and into the following early morning hours. While on most years as many as 20 shooting stars can be counted from the dark countryside, the full moon will unfortunately drown out all but the brightest. Your best shot will be in the predawn hours while the moon is setting in the west. Nov. 17 is when one of the largest asteroids in the solar system, Juno, will be at its brightest in our skies for the year, putting it within easy reach of binoculars. Look to the Eridanus constellation (next to Orion and Taurus) rising in the east near midnight. That’s where you will find Juno flying across its field of faint stars. While the giant space rock swings by Earth every 4.4 years, this will be its closest approach to Earth since 2005 at 149,597,870 km. It won’t come this close again until 2031. Juno appears just over one degree west of the faint naked-eye fourth magnitude star 32 Eridani. Best way to identify and track this giant space rock is to sketch the same star field over a couple of nights, and the star that moves is the asteroid. A less challenging observing quest will be to chase down the moon as it buzzes the Beehive star cluster on Nov. 27. Watch the eastern horizon before sunrise for a thin crescent moon paired with the Beehive star cluster. A pair of binoculars will easily resolve the 577 light year distant cluster into its dozens of member stars, which appear to sparkle like tiny diamonds.

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