Sky and Telescope - November 2018 - 47

weeks that multiple surface features
of Mars are likely to be visible on clear
nights with good small- to medium-size
telescopes. Can you detect that Mars
looks slightly gibbous now that the
planet is near eastern quadrature (90°
east of the Sun)? Mars sets near midnight standard time all month.
Campﬁre-colored Mars starts
November in the vicinity of the two
fairly bright stars at the eastern tip of
Capricornus, Delta (δ) and Gamma
(γ) Capricorni. It shines within 1° of
the brighter star, 3rd-magnitude Delta,
from November 3rd through 5th.
Then Mars glides on to pass deep into
Aquarius during the rest of November
- and heads toward a close December
7th conjunction with Neptune.
This month, Neptune is highest
about 2 hours after the end of astronomical highlight. Brighter Uranus,
retrograding in Aries to the Pisces
border, is highest in late evening. Finder
charts for Neptune and Uranus appear
in the September issue, pages 48-49.

ALL NIGHT
Asteroid 3 Juno reaches opposition at
magnitude 7.4 on November 17th - a
day after Juno's closest approach to
Earth in the period 1980-2060. See
p. 48 for details.

Dawn, Nov 17
1 hour before sunrise

γ Vir

CORVUS

December
solstice

Earth
Venus
March
equinox

Jupiter

Sun

Sept.
equinox

June
solstice

ORBITS OF THE PLANETS
The curved arrows show each planet's movement during November. The outer planets don't
change position enough in a month to notice at this scale.

DAWN AND PRE-DAWN
Venus was at inferior conjunction
with the Sun on October 26th. The
steep angle of the zodiac relative to the
eastern horizon at autumn sunrises
helps Venus rocket up into the dawn
and even the pre-dawn sky during the
course of November. For viewers around
latitude 40° north, Venus precedes
the Sun by only about 35 minutes on
November 1st but by a whopping 3¼
hours on November 30th. The altitude
of Venus at sunrise jumps from almost
6° to about 34° during November. In
this period, the Morning Star brightens
from magnitude -4.2 to its stunning
peak brilliance of -4.9. How long after
sunrise can you follow blazing Venus
with your naked eye?
Venus is also fascinating in binoculars and telescopes this month. On

Dawn, Nov 29 -Dec 1
1 hour before sunrise

LEO
Denebola

11/2°
apart

November 1st, the globe of Venus is
more than 60″ wide and less than 1%
lit. By November 10th, the planet is
less than 56″ across and more than 7%
illuminated. On November 30th, Venus
is down to 41″ wide and 25% lit.
Venus passed 1.2° from Spica on
September 1st, but this month its retrograde motion brings it back to linger
less than 1.5° from the star for the
mornings of November 12-17.

MOON PASSAGES
The Moon is a thin waxing crescent in
the west-southwest on November 10th
at dusk, some 8° lower right of Saturn.
The next evening, it's a little more than
3° upper left of the ringed planet. A
waxing gibbous Moon is about 3° lower
right of Mars at nightfall on November 15th. The just-past-full Moon is
2½° left of Aldebaran after dark on
November 23rd, and
the waning gibbous
Moon is less than 2°
γ
upper left of Regulus
on the night of
November 28-29.

Moon
Nov 29
Moon
Nov 30
Moon
Dec 1

Looking Southeast

Mercury

Neptune

Saturn

Spica
Venus

Mars

Uranus

Looking South, very high in the sky

Regulus

¢ Contributing Editor FRED SCHAAF
had the 10-milewide asteroid 7065
Fredschaaf named
after him in November 2016.

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Sky and Telescope - November 2018

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