A Dales sky at night

This month sees the familiar and brilliant constellation of Orion (the Hunter) appear in the sky just before midnight. Taurus (the Bull) with the bright red star Aldebaran and the star cluster the Pleiades or ‘Seven Sisters are now becoming more conspicuous.

This is the best time to look for the autumn constellations during the evening; the Plough is low in the north and the ‘W’ of Cassiopeia overhead. The summer triangle stars Altair, Deneb and Vega are now becoming low in the west.

If you look to the south the Square of Pegasus is very prominent; a line drawn from the top left hand star of the square shows a line of stars that form the constellation of Andromeda. Below Andromeda is one of the few constellations that look like the figure they are supposed to describe; Triangulum (the Triangle).

Using the two right hand stars of the Square of Pegasus draw a line down for some distance to find Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish).

What’s up in the solar system?

The Planets in November

It’ s rather the same as last month, with Mars and Saturn being so close to the Sun that they really cannot be seen. Venus might just be glimpsed at the end of the month in the evening twilight.

Jupiter is now rising at about 23.30 hrs and will be easily seen throughout the night until dawn breaks. During the first ten days of the month Mercury will be well placed in the dawn sky before the Sun rises.

Meteor Showers

There are two meteor showers this month. The Taurid meteor shower consists of slow moving meteors that often produce spectacular fireballs and is visible from November 5th-12th. On November 17th the Leonid meteors will be on display. Every 33 years the Leonids produce spectacular displays, but this is just an ordinary year.

Phases of the Moon for November

Full Moon 6th, Last Quarter 14th, New Moon 22nd, First Quarter 29th

The full Moon this month is called the Frost Moon. November is the month when it was traditionally considered that the first frosts of the year would occur. It should however be noted that if there was a frost on St Bartholomew’s day, August 24th then a bad winter would be expected. It was frosty on St Bartholomew’s day this year!

The next meeting of the Earby Astronomical society will be Friday October 31st 2014 at All Saints’ Church, Earby from 7.30pm-9.00pm. The speaker will be Kevin Kilburn FRAS from the Manchester Astronomical Society and the talk will be ‘The Forgotten Star Atlas’. It is the story of an eighteenth century star map discovered in Manchester in the 1990s.

The November meeting will be on Friday 28th November and the speaker will be Professor Philippa Browning from the University of Manchester. The title of the talk will be ‘The Active Sun. This is a chance to learn about our local star, the Sun.