The Evening Sky in November 2023
Jupiter is the 'evening star', appearing in the northeast soon after sunset. As the sky darkens Saturn appears northwest of the zenith. Sirius, the brightest true star, rises a little south of due east. By the end of the month it is up at sunset. Canopus, the second-brightest star, is in the southeast. Both stars twinkle like diamonds as the air disperses their white light.
Left of Sirius is the constellation of Orion, with 'The Pot' at its centre. Rigel, a bluish supergiant star, is directly above the line of three stars; orange Betelgeuse, a red-giant star, is straight below. Left again is orange Aldebaran. It is at one tip of a triangular group called the Hyades cluster. The Hyades and Aldebaran make the upside-down face of Taurus the bull. Still further left is the Pleiades or Matariki star cluster, also called the Seven Sisters, Subaru and many other names. Six stars are visible to most eyes. Dozens are seen in binoculars. The cluster is 440 light-years* away and around 100 million years old.
The disk of Jupiter can be seen in binoculars along with one or two of its big moons close by. Any telescope will show the four big moons lined up on either side of Jupiter. Not all four are seen every night. Jupiter is 600 million km away. The ring of Saturn is also visible in a small telescope along with Saturn's biggest moon Titan, close to the planet. The ring is getting thin as we are viewing it more edge-on. Saturn is 1430 million km away. The Moon will be near Saturn on the 20th and near Jupiter on the 25th.
Mercury begins an evening sky appearance during November. Around the 10th it will be setting in the southwest an hour after the Sun, the brightest ‘star’ in that part of the sky. By the 18th it is setting 1½ hours after the Sun. Orange Antares, the scorpion’s heart, will then be to its left. Mercury holds its position night-to-night as the stars sink lower. Mercury is 200 million km away mid-month, coming around from the far side of the Sun. The thin crescent Moon will be below Mercury on the 14th.
Sirius is the brightest star both because it is relatively close, nine light-years. away, and bright as stars go. Seen up close it would be 23 times brighter than the sun. By contrast, Canopus is 300 light-years away and 13 000 times brighter than the sun.
The Milky Way is low in the sky, visible around the horizon from the northwest, through south into the eastern sky. The broadest, brightest part is in Sagittarius, to the right of the Scorpion's sting. The Milky Way is our edgewise view of the galaxy, the pancake of billions of stars of which the Sun is just one.
Low in the south are the Pointers, Beta and Alpha Centauri, and Crux the Southern Cross, now upside down. In some Maori star lore the bright southern Milky Way makes the canoe of Maui with Crux being the canoe's anchor hanging off the side. In this picture the Scorpion's tail can be the canoe's prow and the Clouds of Magellan are the sails. Alpha Centauri is the closest naked-eye star; 4.3 light-years away.
The Clouds of Magellan, (LMC and SMC), high in the southern sky, are two small galaxies about 160 000 and 200 000 light years-away, respectively. They are easily seen by eye on a dark moonless night. The globular star cluster 47 Tucanae looks like a slightly fuzzy star near the top-right edge of the SMC. It is13 000 light-years away and merely on the line of sight to the SMC. Globular clusters are spherical clouds of stars, many billions of years old.
Very low in the north is the Andromeda Galaxy, easily seen in binoculars in a dark sky, and faintly visible to the eye. It appears as a spindle of light. It is similar to our Milky Way Galaxy and nearly three million light years away.
Venus is the brilliant ‘morning star’ (so not on the chart). It rises due east around 4:40 a.m. NZST at the beginning of the month and around 4:10 at the end. By this time Jupiter, fainter than Venus, is setting in the northwest. The Moon will be left of Venus on the morning of the 9th.
*A light-year (l.y.) is the distance that light travels in one year: nearly 10 million million km or 10^13 km. Sunlight takes eight minutes to get here; moonlight about one second. Sunlight reaches Neptune, the outermost major planet, in four hours. It takes sunlight four years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
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