The Sky This Week, 2012 November 6 - 13

Jupiter, with moons Europa & Ganymede and the Great Red Spot

The Moon wanes in the morning sky this week, spending her time moving through the rising stars of the springtime constellations. New Moon occurs on the 13th at 5:08 pm Eastern Standard Time. Look for Luna seven degrees to the southeast of the bright star Regulus before dawn on the 8th. On the morning of the 11th she may be found five degrees south of dazzling Venus. If you have a clear eastern horizon try to spot the very slender lunar crescent, then look about six degrees to the northeast for the emerging glimmer of Saturn.

Last week an alert reader pointed out a glaring mistake which I hope didn’t inconvenience many of you. I listed the date of our clock change as the 5th rather than the 4th. Hopefully this won’t happen again, but if you want to get the word from the true authority in the matter you can contact our friends at the Department of Transportation. It’s a long story, but they are actually the arbiters of civil timekeeping here in the U.S.!

The coming New Moon will be marked by the occurrence of a total solar eclipse. Most of it will occur over the vast reaches of the South Pacific Ocean, with the only populous area along the path of totality being Queensland in northern Australia. What makes this eclipse unusual is that it begins on the 14th local time in Australia and ends on the 13th off the coast of South America. This strange circumstance occurs due to the path of totality crossing the International Date Line. Theoretically someone on a cruise ship near the Date Line could watch the beginning of the eclipse from west of the line on the 14th, sail eastward across the line at mid-eclipse, and watch it end the day before! That would almost be worth the price of the trip for me, but I think I’ll just wait until August 21st 2017 for the next one to cross the continental U.S.!

The switch back to standard time has seemingly caused the evening sky to "jump" a bit toward the winter stars. True, the Summer Triangle is still prominently placed after evening twilight, but if you’re used to viewing it at 8:00 pm you’ll need to go out an hour earlier to see it with the same prominence. Now you’ll find the autumnal constellations overhead at 9:00 pm with the bright stars of Orion and his cohorts invading the eastern horizon. By 11:00 pm all of the stars of the Great Winter Circle are up and beginning to vie for your attention. This rapid transition from summer to winter stars, along with the crisp, clear air of the season make it one of my favorite times of the year for stargazing.

Standard Time means that if you want to catch Mars before he sets you’ll have to do so much earlier now. The red planet is best seen between 6:00 and 7:00 pm EST, low in the southwest just west to the "Teapot" asterism of Sagittarius. Your best view will probably be with your unaided eye or binoculars since his disc has shrunk to miniscule proportions and he wallows in strong atmospheric currents just above the horizon. Nonetheless, it is tantalizing to view him and then look at the latest images from his surface beamed back by the "Curiosity" rover.

Standard Time has also flung Jupiter into the evening spotlight. Old Jove rises at around 6:30 pm EST, and by 9:00 he’s high enough to give good views through the telescope. Virtually any optical aid will replicate the view that Galileo had of Old Jove and his moons over 400 years ago, and a good 4-inch telescope will begin to reveal intricate detail in the planet’s signature cloud belts. If you’d like a challenge, the famous Great Red Spot should be visible on the evenings of the 9th and 11th between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm. This feature is a persistent storm system in the jovian atmosphere that’s been around for some 300 years. Its surface area is larger than the surface area of the entire Earth! That’s some storm…

The morning sky is still dominated by the dazzle of the planet Venus, and this week she is joined by another planet that has just emerged from conjunction with the Sun. Saturn can be found close to the horizon in the southeast half an hour before sunrise. Your best bet to locate him will be on the morning of the 12th, when the very slender crescent Moon is close by.