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Podcaster: Ralph & Paul

Title :Awesome Astronomy’s November Sky Guide

Organization: Awesome Astronomy

Link : www.awesomeastronomy.com

Description:  What to look out, and up, for in November. We take you on a tour of the planets available this month to northern hemisphere observers – with Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mars and Venus being the best and brightest. Comets ISON & Encke grab our attentions as we look forward to a familiar visitor in Encke and a first exposure of ISON, in what could still be that ‘Comet of the Century’. Paul details some of his favourite lunar craters and the two meteor showers in November – the Taurids & Leonids. And we finish off with a round up of the most interesting stars, galaxies and star clusters on offer in the constellations Cetus, Sculptor and Pisces.

Bio: Awesome Astronomy is the show for anyone and everyone who has even the slightest interest in astronomy and science.

Join Ralph & Paul at the beginning of each month, for an informative and fun astronomy programme telling you what to look out (and up) for every month. You can be guaranteed a passion for astronomy, simple explanations of complex and fundamental topics, space and science news, absorbing interviews and listeners’ astronomy questions answered.

As both presenters have been accused of being a little skeptical in the past, you can also expect everything to be frivolous but fact-based

Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2013, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.

Transcript:
November: and for those of you living around latitude 50, the middle of the month will see you under night skies almost 15 hours long, by month’s end daylight is barely 8 hours in length. So we’re into those long observing sessions where you will see a parade of constellations through the night, starting with the last vestiges of late summer, working through autumn, into winter and ending the night with skies of early spring. In fact you’ll see stars like Arcturus and Vega set in the west and rise again in the east, and constellations like Hercules will grace the evening and morning skies but be absent most of the night, there’s nothing like long winter nights to give you a sense of the sheer scale of it all.

First though, a look at this month’s planets. There is really only one serious contender for our observing affections this month and that is Jupiter. The king will be rising around 8pm throughout the month and is unmistakable sitting in the constellation of Gemini, blazing away at magnitude -2.25. It’s in an area of sky that has its fair share of bright stars and Jupiter will outshine all of them, including the brightest Sirius which can only manage -1.45 by comparison. Jupiter will climb high through the night and will be reaching 60 degrees in altitude from latitude 51 by the early hours. Look out for the four bright Galilean moons in binoculars and small telescopes, while with larger scopes it’s all about the cloud detail, the belts and of course the Great Red Spot. Now this isn’t always visible, Jupiter has a rotation period a shade under 10 hours so until we are closer to opposition and have Jupiter in the sky for ten hours there will be nights where the GRS is not pointed towards Earth. It’s a surprisingly faint and difficult object to see, many observing for the first time assume it stands out as it does in voyager pictures, it does require patience sometimes and a blue filter may be useful. Don’t be tempted to rack up the magnification too high with Jupiter, while it is a ‘big bright’ object it does tend to become stretched and blurry at the higher magnifications that telescopes are capable of and I have certainly found that contrast between belts gets lost. Look out for features such as smaller storms and the brown barges which appeared to be very common on Jupiter during the 2011 apparition.

When it comes to the other planets, it’s a case of patience and or aperture. That’s not to say that those with binoculars and small scopes shouldn’t get out there and observe but November is not going to be a great month for detail and long close views. We of course have Neptune in Aquarius between sigma and iota aquarii, which is becoming smaller and more distant all the time after the summer opposition and is now touching magnitude 8.

Uranus is in Pisces close to delta and epsilon Piscium, and at magnitude 5.8 should be relatively easy to locate in a dark sky. Saturn is in conjunction with the Sun at the beginning of November so not visible until much later in the month in the constellation Libra, just before dawn.

Working our way in past Jupiter, we get to mars which is still a very disappointing telescope target and still five months from opposition on April 8th next year, it’s currently in Leo
and is a target for the early risers through the month.

Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation on 1st of November but, like last month, this
view is one low to the horizon in Sagittarius around and after sunset. The thicker, dusty horizon will not help viewing and the -4.3 magnitude planet while bright will not reveal anything in the way of cloud detail. The Moon sits near Venus on 6th and Sigma Sagittarii gets a close visit on the 18th of the month.

Mercury begins the month between us and the Sun at inferior conjunction but of course the winged messenger does not hang about and by the middle of the month, it reaches its greatest western elongation which you can observe on the morning of the 16th.

Now at this point it’s worth talking about what will hopefully be one the highlights of November and indeed this winter – Comet ISON – which has finally arrived in our skies and the first decent views are being recorded around the world. It will plunge behind the Sun when it reaches perihelion on the 28th of the month, but before then it will be providing a host of picture and observing opportunities as it poses with several of the planets, another comet and a bright star in the early hours. At the beginning of the month it’s mars, as it has been in October, that sits close to ISON as they move through Leo into Gemini. As ISON moves into Gemini, leaving the more sedate Mars behind it will be joined by another comet, if one was not enough, comet 2PEncke. The two will appear to converge through the month as they move through Gemini with ISON passing close to the Star Spica on the morning of November 18th while on the horizon below Mercury will be tracing its western elongation. The morning of the 22nd with an almost repeat performance on the 23rd has to be one of the highlights of the astronomical year as before dawn on the south-eastern horizon not only will you have two comets about 5 degrees apart, you will have mercury and the icing on the cake, the returning Saturn joining the party to make what could be an unforgettable sight, It will be an event low to the horizon and not long before dawn so make sure you get a good view in that direction, preferably with a bit of elevation and hope for good weather.
If that wasn’t enough of an early morning itinerary then 3 days later Mercury and Saturn will be in very close conjunction as viewed from Northern Europe and Northern America, separated by a mere 25 arcminutes, in the pre-dawn sky on the 26th November.

Moving on to the moon, we begin the month with New moon on the 3rd and full moon on the 17th. In the first half of the month look out for favourable libration craters Petrow on the 10th, Jenner on the 13th and Gibbs on the 15th with a good view of Mare Australe on the 12th. These can all be viewed in the South East quadrant. The moon also gives us a nice occultation on the night of the 23rd as it passes in front of M67 in Cancer just before ten o’clock in the evening UT with the cluster reappearing an hour later.

Two meteor showers to view this month, with the first really being a two for one deal. The Taurids which have a north and south stream with the south peaking on the 4/5th November and the north peaking on 12th/13th are really two meteor streams, one from comet 2p Encke and the other from asteroid 2004 TG10 which is thought to be a fragment of Encke itself. It’s actually a very long shower and has been with us since the beginning of September and won’t end until December, but the zenithal rate is quite low and 5-15 an hour is common at the peak. On the night of the 16th/17th we have the peak of the leonids, which originate from Comet Temple-Tutle. The moon is unfortunately full on the 17th so the good zenithal rate of over thirty will probably be badly obscured. Still worth a look but the Taurids earlier in the month may be the better bet.

Moving on to Deep-sky this month I will point you in the direction of three less observed constellations Pisces, Sculptor and Cetus. These sit next to each other below Pisces in the South in November, with Sculptor closer to the horizon. In Pisces we have Galaxy M74, a grand design spiral that sits face on to us at a distance of 32 million light years. While quite a large object, it’s also notorious for low surface brightness and is considered by many to be the most difficult messier object to observe. It sits close to eta piscium. Pisces also contains the beautiful circlet asterism of seven stars, which contains the fascinating 19 Piscium or Piscium TX which is obviously red and is a result of it being a carbon Star [small explanation of a carbon star?].

Cetus contains Galaxy M77 near delta ceti. This is a barred spiral about 47 million light years away and is an active galaxy, a seyfert type 2, and is thought to be one of the biggest galaxies in the messier catalogue, its central region is bright and compact and is visible in even quite small scopes. Cetus is also famous for the Star Mira, a star that gives its name to a whole class of variable stars and despite being over 400 light years away is so swollen that it is one of two stars that have had their stellar discs imaged by Hubble.

The constellation of sculptor is a difficult constellation for observers in the north and never really climbs far above the horizon. It contains both the Sculptor dwarf galaxy, a member of our own local group and the sculptor galaxy group, which is the nearest group to our own. The sculptor galaxy NGC 253 is the largest member and a barred spiral, sitting in the constellation towards Cetus. NGC 55 is an interesting irregular galaxy that sits between us and the Sculptor group and may be one of an independent pair with NGC 300.

So, plenty to see in November. I wish you clear skies and remind you all to wrap up warm as you enjoy what the sky has to offer.

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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