Mars does continue to get dimmer and dimmer, but there are still plenty of good things to see in the November night sky. Venus is just starting a seven-month reign as the Evening Star. Right now, it appears low in the southwestern sky just after sunset. But each day it will climb farther out of that orange and yellow glow and eventually remain in the night sky. Venus is the third brightest object in the Earth’s sky, beaten only by the Sun and the Moon. Venus can be so bright that there are stories of airports radioing landing instructions to it. Jupiter is the very bright spot in the early morning sky in the east. Saturn will clear the eastern horizon just after dark and be getting higher and clearer as November goes on.

Although there will be a lunar eclipse on the night of Saturday the 8^th , it won’t be a really good one for us. The Moon will already have started eclipsing by the time it rises in the east, just as the Sun is setting in the west. Europe will already be well into the dark, and the eastern U.S. will get a good view. We will see the Moon darken and redden, with a totality occurring around 7:06 P.M. This is also November’s full moon. However, you can see a total solar eclipse on November 23. Unfortunately, you have to be on the Antarctic continent to see it. If you just happen to be there, do let us know how it was!

There will be a good meteor shower in November – the Leonids. The meteor shower is so named since the streaks of light will appear to be coming out of the constellation Leo, the Lion. The debris that will be falling into the Earth’s atmosphere has come from the comet Temple-Tuttle, which sweeps through the Solar System every 33 years. But this year’s version is going to have an interesting twist. There will be not one, not two, but three separate showers. The first encounter will be on November 13^th, at 11:17 that morning. Not too good for local viewing. But on November 18 and 19, we pass through the debris trail while North America is in the dark.

When we look to the constellations in the southern sky, we see that Scorpio and Sagittarius are just about gone, Capricornus is way off to the west, and there just aren’t many bright stars to be seen. The faint Pisces and Aries are up in the night sky, but the easily recognized Taurus is at least appearing at the western horizon. In the north, the constellations of the Perseus and Cassiopeia legend are above Polaris and on up overhead.