At dusk on Nov. 1, the bright first-magnitude “star” in the east-southeast to southeast, about 4° to the lower left of the 83 percent waxing gibbous moon, is actually Saturn.
Binoculars or a telescope will reveal impressive details in the surface features along the moon’s terminator, or day-night boundary, where sunrise is taking place. Look again the next evening, Nov. 2, when the terminator will have moved about 12°, or 1/30 of the way around the moon’s sphere, and additional moonscape will have emerged into sunlight. Saturn will appear 11° to the moon’s upper right.
Point your telescope toward Saturn in early November, and you’ll see the rings tipped less than 0.6° from edge-on, giving an appearance of a ball of yarn pierced by a needle. Later this month, from Nov. 21-26, the rings will appear only 0.37° from edgewise—the closest to an exact edge-on view we’ll get until 2038-2039, when the ring plane will sweep across Earth’s orbit and present an edge-on view, once toward the sun, during Saturn’s northern spring equinox, and three times for observers on Earth. On the latter trio of occasions, the rings will disappear entirely! Be sure to arrange a telescopic visit to Saturn at least once each year, to check on the ringed planet’s progress through its 29.5-year cycle of seasons.
When the rings are close to edgewise, they appear less bright, presenting a fine opportunity to observe Saturn’s moons. The brightest, Titan, has a 16-day orbit, and appears farthest east of the planet on Nov. 2 and 18, and farthest west on Nov. 10 and 26. At such times, Titan appears four ring lengths from the nearer ring edge.
The other bright objects at dusk are two zero-magnitude stars, golden Arcturus, low in the west-northwest, visible only early in month, and blue-white Vega, nearly 60° higher; and the first-magnitude stars Altair and Deneb, completing the Summer Triangle with Vega; Fomalhaut, mouth of the Southern Fish, within 30° to the lower right of Saturn; and Antares, very low in the southwest.
To catch Antares in November, use binoculars and look very early in month. It drops lower each evening, on its way to conjunction with the sun on Dec. 1. Mercury, 7° to the lower right of Antares on Nov. 1, and faint Mars, within 6° to the lower right of Mercury, are even greater challenges. The three bodies will be equally spaced at 4° on Nov. 8, as Mercury begins retrograde and stops short, to lower right of Antares. But Mercury fades in the following days, reaching inferior conjunction with the sun on Nov. 20. Mars will pass 1.2° north (to the upper right) of Mercury on Nov. 12, and 4° north of Antares on Nov. 17-18, but these events are not observable. Your next chances to actually see a conjunction of Mars with Antares, “the rival of Mars,” will occur on the evenings of Oct. 29, 2027; Oct. 7, 2029; and Sept. 10, 2031, with each pairing higher in the sky and closer to each other than the preceding; and in the morning sky in Feb. 2033, and in January in 2035 and 2037.
Other bright stars becoming noticeable during evening twilight in November are zero-magnitude Capella, the “Mother Goat” star, already risen in the far northeast at mid-twilight at the start of November; and red-orange first-magnitude Aldebaran, eye of Taurus, the Bull, rising to the lower right of Capella, and 14° below the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters star cluster. Stars appear in the same places four minutes earlier each night owing to the Earth’s revolution around the sun, and by Dec. 1, Aldebaran will be at opposition, rising around sunset and visible all night. The Pleiades reach opposition 10 days earlier, on Nov. 21, on the same date as Uranus.
Using binoculars, look to the right of Capella for a compact isosceles triangle of stars, the Kids, or baby goats. Look within the same field of view as Aldebaran for the Hyades star cluster, completing a letter “V” with that bright star to form the head of Taurus. Aim your binoculars higher for the spectacular Pleiades cluster, which looks like a compact, short-handled dipper. The planet Uranus is easily visible in binoculars within 4°-5° south of the Pleiades. Get Robert D. Miller’s online finder charts showing the slow retrograde motions of 5.6-magnitude Uranus near the Pleaides, and the fainter, more challenging 7.8-magnitude Neptune, 4.2° to 4.4° from Saturn this month and near the asterism of the Turtle, at abramsplanetarium.org/msta.
When the moon is bright, it’s not good for observing faint objects near the moon. At the end of evening twilight, Saturn and faint Neptune will appear near the 84 percent waxing moon on Nov. 1, and the 91 percent moon on Nov. 2. The full moon, the closest of 2025, occurs on Nov. 5, at 5:19 a.m. The Pleiades star cluster will appear 8° to the lower left of a 99 percent waning moon on Nov. 5, and 7° to the upper right of a 96 percent moon on Nov. 6. By two hours after sunset on Nov. 6, Aldebaran will have risen 10° to the lower right of the moon. Wait until the moon moves on, or rises later, for the best view of these objects and their surrounding fields.
You won’t have long to wait! On the date of the full moon, Nov. 5, the “Supermoon” will rise around sunset, and then moonrise occurs later on each successive evening. On the next four evenings, Nov. 6-9, moonrise will still be fascinating to watch, as it will clear the horizon at a point farther north than the sun ever does. The northernmost moon of the current lunar month rises after nightfall on Nov. 7, climbs highest in the sky in the early hours of Nov. 8, and sets far north of west, in daylight about four hours after sunrise, on Nov. 8.
If you go outside to look when the moon is highest in the sky on the early morning of Nov. 8, you’ll catch it as it passes just south of overhead, some 5° higher than the greatest altitude attained by the summer solstice midday sun. The moon will be surrounded by a ring of brilliant objects. Steady, yellow-white Jupiter, shining at magnitude -2.4, is the brightest, 28° to the moon’s east-southeast. Blue-white twinkling Sirius, of magnitude 1.4, ranks next in brightness, and is nearly twice as far to the moon’s south-southeast. The zero-magnitude star Capella is to the north-northwest of moon, far enough to pass north of overhead.
Going clockwise around the oval beginning with Jupiter, we encounter the “Twin” stars of Gemini, Pollux and Castor, 4.5° apart; next, Capella; and then down to Aldebaran, 20° to the lower right of the moon; next, 26° to the lower left, is Rigel, Orion’s foot; and then on to Sirius. Just east of a line back to our starting point, Jupiter, we encounter Procyon, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor, the Little Dog. The reddest of the stars of first-magnitude or brighter, the supergiant Betelgeuse, lies inside the oval of stars. Regulus, heart of Leo, the Lion, lies well outside the oval, in the eastern sky 35° to the east of Jupiter.
The star Sirius will reach its highest point in south about an hour after the moon does so on the morning of Nov. 8.
The entire ring of stars, the Winter Hexagon described above, can be observed at a wide range of times of night through November. Look for it in the eastern sky, by around 11 p.m. on Nov. 2, backing to 9 p.m. by month’s end. Procyon and Sirius are the last of its stars to rise. The entire assemblage can be followed through the rest of the night, crossing through the south and overhead, and then sinking lower in the western sky in morning twilight as the month progresses.
Even brighter than Jupiter is Venus, of magnitude -3.9, but the inner planet is heading toward superior conjunction on the far side of the sun in early January, so look soon! At the start of November, Venus is still easy to spot, very low in the east to east-southeast about an hour before sunrise. The Big Dipper is then standing on its handle in the northeast. On Nov. 2, follow the arc of its handle to Arcturus, low in the east-northeast, and on further to Venus, with first-magnitude Spica 3.5° to the planet’s lower right. Each morning at the same stage of twilight, Spica climbs higher, but Venus drops a little lower, shifting its rising time into brighter twilight. On what morning will you last spot Venus and Jupiter simultaneously?
Follow the waning moon in morning twilight daily for two weeks, beginning with the full moon of Nov. 5 and continuing through Nov. 18. For three mornings, see the moon appear in Taurus: closely west of the Pleiades on Nov. 6; widely north of Aldebaran on Nov. 7; and east of Elnath, tip of the Bull’s northern horn, on Nov. 8.
On Sunday morning, Nov. 9, Castor, Pollux and Jupiter, 9°, 11° and 13° from the moon, form an arc east of the 78 percent waning gibbous moon. On Nov. 10, the 68 percent moon is 4°-5° from Jupiter and Pollux, and 9° from Castor, while Venus will be 10° to the lower left of Spica. On Nov. 11, the moon is nearly halfway from Jupiter toward Regulus. On mornings of Nov. 11 and 12, Jupiter-Pollux-Castor come closest to a straight line. But Jupiter is beginning to retrograde, going nearly 10° west in the next four months, pulling away from the extended Castor-to-Pollux line.
On Nov. 12, the 47 percent moon, just past last quarter phase, will be within 6° west of Regulus. On the next morning, Nov. 13, the 37 percent crescent will appear 7° east of the star.
On night of Nov. 16-17, in late evening when Jupiter and Saturn are both nearly 30° up—Jupiter in east, and Saturn in the west-southwest—the two giants are nearly 120° apart, in “trine” (More on that later.) They won’t appear this far apart again until morning of Aug. 31, 2026, and will spread farther apart until their next maximum separation, on Dec. 11, 2026. On five occasions in 2029-31, they’ll be nearly 180° apart, and for extended periods, it will be impossible to see both planets above the horizon simultaneously.
In the predawn darkness hours on their peak date of Monday, Nov. 17, Leonid meteors are expected to increase in number as their radiant in Leo rises higher in the sky between midnight until the first light of dawn. Meteors can light up anywhere in the sky, but the trails of shower members, extended backward, will seem to radiate from a spot within the Sickle of Leo.
Also on Nov. 17, within an hour before sunup, Spica will appear within 3° to the upper left of the 7 percent waning crescent moon in the east-southeast. Watch for Venus rising 17° to the moon’s lower left. On Nov. 18, the last old crescent moon, 3 percent illuminated, appears 15° to the lower left of Spica. Watch for Venus rising 8° to the moon’s lower left.
On the morning of Nov. 22, Spaceship Earth is carrying us in the direction of Regulus, and we will overtake Jupiter in coming weeks, causing that planet to drop lower in the western predawn sky, while fast-moving Mercury, overtaking us, will pop up above the eastern horizon to become a fine morning “star” before month’s end.
The new moon occurs on Nov. 19 at 10:47 p.m. Uranus and the Pleiades are both at opposition to the sun on Nov. 20. On Nov. 21, 25 minutes after sunset from Southern California, a 3 percent crescent moon might be visible with binoculars in a very clear sky, only 3 degrees up in the southwest. On Nov. 22, an hour after sunset, a much easier 7 percent crescent moon would be visible very low in the southwest, near the tip of the spout of the Teapot of Sagittarius. On the next evening, Nov. 23, the 13 percent crescent will appear in the Teapot’s handle. On Nov. 27, a 48 percent, nearly first quarter moon will appear well up in the southern sky, 22° to the lower right of Saturn an hour after sunset. On Nov. 28, Saturn appears 9° to the left of a 58 percent waxing gibbous moon. On Nov. 29, Saturn appears 6° to the lower right of a 69 percent moon. On the last evening of November, the 79 percent moon appears 20° to the left of Saturn.
Back to the morning sky for a planetary aspect of interest to astrologers, and a speedy brightening Mercury retrograding into the morning sky. At mid-twilight on Nov. 26, Venus, just rising in the east-southeast, is in “trine” with Jupiter, well up in western sky, meaning they are one-third of a circle, or 120°, apart. Can you spot Mercury, of magnitude +1.4 and 3.3° above Venus? Moving away from inferior conjunction, Mercury brightens rapidly and moves higher each morning. On Nov. 27, it will glow at magnitude +1.0, five degrees above and slightly to the right of Venus. On Nov. 28, Mercury, at magnitude +0.6, will be 6.5° to the upper right of Venus. Mercury (magnitude +0.3), ends retrograde on Nov. 29, while 5.7° to the lower left of third-magnitude Alpha in Libra, and 27° to the lower left of Spica. Mercury is also 8° to the upper right of rising Venus, but that planet is no longer useful as a reference, since it rises in brighter twilight each morning. Mercury, at magnitude +0.1 on Nov. 30, is bright enough to be found on its own. By end of the first week of December, in this very favorable apparition for observers at mid-northern latitudes, Mercury will brighten to magnitude -0.5 and attain its highest position in twilight for the year.
The Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar is available by subscription from www.abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar. Each monthly issue consists of a calendar page illustrating events such as mentioned in this article, and an evening sky map. For $12 per year, subscribers receive quarterly mailings, each containing three monthly issues.
Robert Victor originated the Abrams Planetarium monthly Sky Calendar in October 1968 and still helps produce an occasional issue. He enjoys being outdoors sharing the beauty of the night sky and other wonders of nature.