Monday 20th to Sunday 26th November 2023
How about seeing two things at once? Well there are a couple of opportunities to do that next week without having to stay up late.
Firstly, during the evening of Monday 20th, a First Quarter Moon will make a great target for your binoculars or telescope with Saturn just above and to the right of it. If you venture outside around 6pm, the pair will be located towards the south.
By 11pm they will appear to have moved across the sky and will be disappearing below the horizon towards the south west.
Go outside at 6pm on Saturday 25th instead and an almost Full Moon will be located towards the east, with Jupiter just to the right of it.
The actual Full Moon occurs a couple of days later and this period is not the best for observing faint deep sky objects because a Full Moon is the ultimate source of light pollution! The whole of November is brilliant for studying Jupiter though as it reaches a nice high elevation in the sky and is visible for most of the night, so if you can't sleep and feel the urge to whip out your telescope at 2am, the gas giant will still be there waiting for you!
Finally, there is one good opportunity to observe the International Space Station passing silently overhead on the early evening of Wednesday 22nd. It will appear above the horizon to the west at 5.57pm and will be visible for five minutes before disappearing towards the east. Sunlight reflecting off the ISS solar panels make it look like a bright star, except that it doesn't twinkle and it's moving!
www.starsoversomerset.com
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2023
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