The Evening Sky in November 2024
Venus is the brilliant ‘evening star’, appearing soon after sunset (or before, if you know where to look.) It sets in the southwest around 11:20 pm NZDT at the beginning of the month and near midnight at the end. A brilliant object in the dark night sky. The crescent Moon will be near Venus on the 4th and 5th. Below and left of Venus is Mercury, the brightest ‘star’ in that area. It sets around 10 pm at the beginning of the month and 10:20 at mid-month. A thin Moon will be near Mercury on the 3rd. Mercury fades and slips lower in the twilight at the end of November. Antares, the heart of the scorpion, will be left of Mercury on the 11th.
Saturn is northwest of the zenith at dusk looking like a medium-bright star with a cream tint. In a telescope it looks like a ball with a spike through it as the ring is nearly edge-on to our view. The Moon will be near Saturn on the 10th and 11th.
At the beginning of the month Jupiter rises in the northeast around 11:20 as Venus is setting in the southwest. It is the brightest ‘star’ in the late-night sky and shines with a steady golden light. Any telescope will show its disk and its four ‘Galilean’ moons lined up on each side. By the end of the month it will be in the sky at dusk. At dawn Jupiter is low in the northwest sky. The Moon is near Jupiter on the 17th.
Sirius, the brightest true star, is low in the east twinkling colourfully. 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.
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.
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 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 is 13 000 light-years away and on the line of sight to the SMC. Globular clusters are spherical clouds of ancient stars.
Very low in the north is the Andromeda Galaxy, easily seen in binoculars in a dark sky, and faintly visible to the eye. It is like our Milky Way Galaxy and nearly three million light years away.
Mars is in the morning sky rising in the northeast around 2 a.m. at the beginning of the month and 12:30 at the end. It is the brightest ‘star’ in that part of the sky and is reddish orange in colour.
*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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