November 2013

Moon                         

                                                                                                                        

New                            3rd    06:55  -- 16:28              

First Quarter               10th  13:08  --  23:58             
Full                             17th  16:12  --  07:11             
Last Quarter               25th  23:41  --  12:24             

 

Winter now, after a good summer. At least it wasn't like last year’s. We even got some summer in early October. We can expect long nights, cold of course, but we dress for it and are used to it too. Lots of good things to look forward to during those long nights. Hopefully we can break that old habit of cloudy Fridays.

  

Planets

Mercury comes up in the east just after the sun on the 1st, so not safe to seek, but from the 4th it will have skirted the sun and started to run ahead of it. On the 4th it will be up 20 mins before the sun, and on the 5th it'll be 40 mins ahead, a mag 5.3/10arcsec crescent, only illuminated 0.14%, certainly worth a try. By the 9th it will be mag 1.0 and show a phase of 20% and still moving away from the sun. By the 18th it will present a smaller disc, 60% illuminated, mag -0.5, and beginning its journey back towards the sun. By the 21st it should be 30 mins ahead of the sun, a smaller, mag  -0.6 disc, with a 70% phase. Interestingly it will have two comets beside it as it rises at 6am. Encke just 2° to the right and ISON 7° further to the right, both at about mag 4, but only just above the horizon and easily burned out in the dawn twilight.

Venus starts the month in the west, setting 90mins after the sun, a bright mag -4.4 disc showing a 49% phase. It will be there all month as the reassuringly bright Evening Star setting up to 2 hours after the sun and showing a mag -4.5 disc changing from the 49% at the start to 30% at the end of the month.

Mars will rise under the belly of Leo at 1:30am on the 1st, a still small disc of mag 1.5/5arcsec. Rising 7° behind it will be comet ISON at mag 7.4, and 26° later will be comet Encke at mag 7.5. Dawn starts lightening the sky some 4 hours later, though the comets may have faded before then. By the end of the month Mars will have fallen back into Virgo and rise soon after 1am, a slightly brighter disc of mag 1.2/6arcsec  Mars will be there for us all month.

Jupiter will rise at 8:45pm on the 1st in Gemini, a bright mag -2.4/41 arcsec disc, full of promise, and will be available all night. It will be almost unmoved in Gemini all month but will be a little larger at 45arcsec.

On the 1st, Saturn goes down in the west 20 mins after the sun in bright twilight, so not worth seeking. But it will skirt the sun and become a morning object and by the 15th it should be visible in morning twilight, rising at 6:45am, about 50 mins before the sun. Thereafter it will rise earlier each day till by the end of the month it will be up by 6am, 2 hours before the sun. On the 26th it will rise at 6:15 in the company of Mercury less than half a degree away. Saturn will be a 15arcsec disc at mag 0.6 and Mercury will be a tiny 6 arcsec disc but brighter at mag -0.7, 82% illuminated.

Uranus, at mag 5.7/4 arcsec, will rise on the 1st at 3:45pm in evening twilight and set in the west at 4am so will be with us most of the night. By month's end it will not have changed its appearance, a tiny blue disc, but will set by 2:15am having risen at 1:45pm. Not much to look at but try to use a longer focal length to look at its moons.

On the 1st, Neptune rises at 2:45pm, an even tinier blue disc, at mag 7.9/2 arcsec, in Aquarius. It will south at 7:45pm, only 25° high and set at half past midnight. At the end of the month it will rise at1pm and set at 10:30pm without changing its appearance.

 

Meteor Showers.

The Leonids is the only shower of consistent note this month, characterised by bright fast meteors, and occasional fireballs. Appearing to come from the Sickle of Leo and peaking on the 17^th-ish. In the past there have been meteor storms of great note produced by this shower, but this year’s forecast isn’t likely to be one of those years. The Moon will be full and a quarter of the sky away in Taurus, but it will be bright enough to curdle the milk.

 

Comets.

Here it is at last, we hope. ISON, or to be more exact, C/2012 S1 ISON. On the first it will rise in the east at 2am at mag 7.4, so not visual yet. The dawn twilight will lighten the sky from about 4:30am so plenty of time to photograph it. It will be accompanied by Comet Encke rising over the horizon about 40 mins after ISON, and about the same magnitude, then followed by a thin crescent moon an hour and a half later. But the comets will have been likely extinguished by dawn by then. As each day goes by, the comet gets brighter by about 0.1 mag and moves lower (closer to the sun), having left Mars well behind. So on the 7th, ISON will be mag 6.5 and Encke 6.7. But as they brighten, by getting closer to the sun, the twilight gets closer too, so the time to study them shortens! On the 9th, ISON will rise at 3am and twilight will start about 4:40am. On the 16th it will rise at 4:25am at mag 4.9 and be killed off by twilight at 5:45am. Encke will rise at 5:15am. They are both moving fast now. On the 18th Encke will be mag 4.9 as it rises at 5:30 and ISON mag 4.4 as it rises at 4:55am and within half a degree of Spica. Both will be in dawn twilight by then so not easy to see though you should see Spica with binoculars. Though the timings will be right enough, the magnitudes are appearing to be generous. Mercury should also be there under 3° below Encke at 5:45am. Over the next 3 days the comets will catch up with Mercury, and both will have passed it by the 23rd. Encke should be Mag 4.6 and ISON 2.8. ISON now overtaking Encke to get to the sun. ISON will have Mercury above it less than 3° away and Saturn 6° further east. Neither comet may be visible now as they'll be rising in brighter twilight, but they'll be brighter too, so they may be visible! You'll have to look for yourselves. No predictions from now till after ISON has spun round the sun, if it does get round without falling in! That will be on the evening of the 28th. The first time you could see if it has got round will be on the evening of the 29th at 3:55pm, 5 mins after the sun has set. Use the inner tube of a toilet roll or equivalent, NOT binoculars, too close to the sun for safety. Better to wait a few days, perhaps the 3rd of December would be the earliest, at 6:30am, in the east, an hour and a half before the sun rises. It will be at mag 2.2 by then. Easier to find now but gradually getting fainter daily as it pulls away from the sun. It will be circumpolar from the 23rd of December.