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If the weather is mild in your area Sunday night (November 11) until the end of next week, you will have the opportunity to see what are probably the three "most requested" objects to look at. telescope: the moon and the planets Saturn and Mars.
As for the planets, remember that in the middle and at the end of the summer, we had four bright planets draped well in the evening sky. Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars were distributed from south-west to south-east. But since then, Venus has passed in the morning sky, while Jupiter is too close to the sun to be seen.
This leaves us now only Saturn and Mars to watch after sunset, and in a month it will be Saturn's turn to leave as well. This weekend, the moon will visit the "Ringed Wonder" and will then visit Mars on Thursday. Let's take a closer look at the two combinations, starting with the moon and Saturn. [The Brightest Planets in November’s Night Sky: How to See Them]
Moon visits Saturn
It will soon be time to bid farewell to the centerpiece of the solar system, the magnificent planet Saturn. We will have about a month before it starts to disappear in the sunset lights. And Sunday will be one of the last opportunities for many to make a positive identification because it will be close to a crescent moon. Wait about an hour after sunset, then focus on the southwest horizon.
The moon will have reached four days after the new phase and 18% of light, hovering at nearly 20 degrees above the horizon. As your closed fist is about 10 degrees wide, this lunar arc will appear almost "two fists" upwards. Once you have spotted the moon, notice a bright, lonely "star" shining with a yellowish-white hue and serene lower right. This will be the solar system version of the "lord of the rings". Of course, make sure in advance that there are no tall trees or buildings that can interfere with the sight of these two celestial bodies. After all, the two will quickly lower as the sky darkens and both will remain visible for less than 90 minutes before disappearing under the horizon.
Of course, you can see the famous rings of Saturn only with a telescope, although some can see them using twin binoculars stabilized (or stabilized by a picture) high power. But to get a definitive view, you will need an eyepiece magnifying at least 30 times. Larger instruments will provide more enjoyable images. Through a 6-inch telescope with a power of 150, the view is quite spectacular; with a 10 inch to 250 horsepower, the view is breathtaking. But do see yourself as soon as possible in the evening, as our atmosphere is much more turbulent near the horizon. As Saturn descends into the southwestern sky, its image will appear to "distort" or deform somewhat.
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After leaving Saturn's surroundings, the moon will head east, in front of the stars in the background, and on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, it will be all by itself. For the owner of a telescope, the moon is perhaps the most interesting of all the objects in the sky because it is close enough to be really well seen. Even a simple pair of binoculars with 7 powers will present precise features on its surface. Check the area especially around the line that separates the light from the dark (called the "terminator") and you will see the craters and other lunar features come off in bold because they are partially in the air. 39; shadow.
With each passing night, the lunar surface lights up and the crescent gradually widens. Finally, on Thursday night, the moon will travel to another planet. It will be Mars, the red planet.
Moon visits Mars
Incidentally, although most almanacs and calendars will indicate Thursday, November 15th as the evening of the first (half) moon, this is not entirely correct. This is because the timing of the first quarter phase is at 14:54 GMT, or 9:54 pm Eastern time. It is at this point that the moon is illuminated at 50% and the terminator appears straight. But at this point, the moon is below the horizon for North America. When we arrive in the evening hours, the moon will be several hours after the first quarter; it will be illuminated at 53% and the terminator will no longer be straight, but slightly convex.
About 3 degrees in the upper left corner of the moon that night, you will see Mars, which continues to move away from the Earth. As we call Mars the "red" planet, you will see that it is shining more and more with a yellowish orange hue. This coloration is due to the rust of iron oxide that covers much of the Martian surface. Here on Earth, we have something quite similar to the colors of the famous Painted Desert in Arizona. Yet the yellow-orange color seemed to suggest blood to ancient observers, and since the "wandering stars" we call the planets are called ancient deities, it seems appropriate to name this topaz traveler the god of war.
Frank Melillo of Holtsville, Long Island, New York, filmed March on the evening of October 31 (Halloween). He writes: "I pictured Mars that night and I joined him here." Yes, he's gibbous now and it's almost three days before the full moon. "Usually, Mars appears gibbous three months before and after the opposition, Mars will be in the area until the next Spring, Mare Tyrrhenum and Mare Cimmerium dominate the disk in the form of a long dark band separating it from 12 millimeters in diameter . "
Credit: Frank Melillo
On November 1, Mars blazed to a magnitude of -0.6 at a distance of 73.4 million miles (118.2 million kilometers) from Earth. But by the end of the month, it will be 20.5 million miles away from us (nearly 33 million km) and will therefore have dropped significantly to magnitude 0, or only about a third as bright as it is. He had appeared at the end of July (lower magnitudes are brighter). Unfortunately, a huge dust storm on both sides of the surface masked most of the surface of Mars at the time. The storm has since disappeared, but the apparent size of Mars seems to have only 40% of the size of what it was closer to the Earth. Nevertheless, some observers such as Frank J. Melillo, of Holtsville, New York, still take pictures of good quality.
From that moment, Mars will continue to contract and become darker as its distance from the Earth increases. From here the beginning of 2019, even a large telescope will have difficulty in bringing out the characteristics of the surface. From here, Mars will be more than a small point.
Joe Rao is an instructor and guest speaker at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. He writes on astronomy for Natural History magazine, The Farmers' Almanac and other publications. He is also a weather forecaster for Verizon FiOS1 News in the Lower Hudson Valley in New York. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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