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Today, we are going to take a look ahead to the coming month of November to see what the sky is going to look like and what kind of objects we’re going to be able to see. We’ll briefly start with sunset on the 1st of November. This is of course a reasonably similar sky to late October, with the Moon and Saturn are reasonably close together as the sky darkens.

As we move forward through the month, we’ll come up to the Full Moon on around the 5th of November. For us in Ireland, the Moon is 99.8% full when it rises on the 5th. If we go forward another day, it drops down to just 97.5% full. At 99.8% we don’t get to see it at 100% full from here in Ireland, but that’s okay, it’s still going to be reasonably close to full. Thanks to the onset of winter, the sky is continuing to get dark earlier and earlier. Looking at the sky quite early, at just 6:30, it’s already dark enough to see plenty of stars in the sky, and for the light of the Full Moon to be very apparent. If we take a closer look at the Moon itself, we can see that it is very, very close to full, but not quite. The western edge of the Moon has a bit of extra visible cratering thanks to the shadow, but it is only a bit less than full, just 0.2%. Most importantly, the Moon is really close to us, just 355,000 kilometers away, give or take. This is only 5,000 kilometers further from us than the Moon could potentially get, about 300,000 kilometers, so this one really is a supermoon. It’s almost 100% full and it is pretty much as close to us as it is going to get. Of course, if you are at a different location on Earth, then the Moon could very well be closer to 100% full for you, so it might be a 100% full supermoon. Thanks to the reasonably broad definition of a supermoon, may of them aren’t that super, but this one really is. This next supermoon is more super than the supermoon that we had in October.

Pushing later into the night of the Full Moon, the light of the Moon is going to make it more difficult to see faint objects in the sky. Thankfully, even quite early in the evening, we’re going to have some famous bright objects, objects that will be visible even on the night of the Full Moon. After pushing just to 9:30, Jupiter is already above the horizon, although barely. It’s very close to the horizon, but it is up. This means we’re seeing two planets comfortably before midnight, whereas we’ve been seeing a lot of planets in the morning for the past couple of weeks, or even months. Now, we’re starting to get those planets back into the evening sky. Speaking of bright objects, we can see Aldebaran in the Hyades, Aldebaran is bright enough to shine through even with the light of the Full Moon. The Pleiades are also nice and high, and they’re quite close to the Moon, even closer if we move forward to the 6th. That’s going to make them more difficult to see, and Uranus is out there as well.

Once we move a little bit later in the month, Uranus will come up to its opposition. It’s a very difficult planet to see, so if you do want to see it, it’s best to give yourself the best possible chance and go out when the viewing conditions are as close to ideal as possible. After pushing fully through to the morning, Orion is practically leaving the sky as the sunrises, so it’s going to start getting more visible in the evening time as we come through November. Leo is also nice and easy to see, high in the sky in the morning. Venus is quite low to the Sun and as we move later in the month, Venus is going to move out of view in the morning sky. It is getting more and more difficult to see, it’s already pretty difficult to see even early in the month.

On the morning of Halloween, the Comet 3I/ATLAS was pretty close to Venus in the morning sky. As we come through November, it’s going to continue across the sky westward, getting further from Venus. It is very difficult to see, just a little bit higher than Venus in the sky on the 8th and it will continue moving out westward and above Venus. It’s dropped all the way down to 14th magnitude, so it is going to be quite difficult to see, but the Moon is going to be less full once we come through to the 8th. Earlier in the month it will be out of the way, but the comet will also be closer to sunrise. We’re going to have to wait until very late in the month for the Moon to be out of the morning sky. Our Full Moon is a bit after the beginning of the month, so we’re going to get our New Moon a little bit later than the middle of the month. Once we’re through to the New Moon here pretty close to the end of the month, 3I/ATLAS will be in a good level of darkness.

As the Moon moves across the sky from full to new, it comes nice and close to Jupiter and Pollux. The three of them almost make a line in the sky. If we take a closer look, with the Moon in the center, we can see the bright star Pollux and Jupiter and the Moon all together at the same time. They almost form a straight line just as the Sun is coming up for us here in Ireland, but they’re very close together even when they are in darkness for us here in Ireland. Trying to take closer look, we’re not quite able to see Jupiter’s moons with everything in view. You would need a very wide field of view to be able to capture all of those objects together and that’s going to make it harder to see smaller things.

Taking a closer look at Jupiter specifically, the 10th of November looks like a fantastic morning to take a look at Jupiter. We’re looking at about 5 o’clock, and we’ve got all four of the Galilean moons really clearly spread out next to each other, and the Great Red Spot is just about coming into view. Not only is the Moon going to be lining up with Jupiter and Pollux, but Jupiter will look particularly good, at least in the morning. If we move back to evening time, the Moon is noticeably less in a line with Pollux and Jupiter. This is a great way to show how much the Moon moves over the course of just one night. If you go out in the evening, you’ll be able to see a sort of a triangle with Pollux, Jupiter and the Moon, but once we come through to morning time, that will close down to almost a straight line. Taking a closer look at Jupiter in the evening, the moons are in slightly different positions and the Great Red Spot is around on the other side of the planet, so we’ll have to wait until morning time for it to turn into view.

As we move closer to the middle of the month the sky will look more different. Looking at the sky just just before midnight, we will still have the Moon, bit less than full, along with Jupiter and Sirius already above the horizon just before midnight. We have Orion nice and clear already reasonably high in the sky, along with the Hyades and the Pleiades. Roughly around the Pleiades is where Uranus should be, already pretty close to the south. Taking a closer look at Uranus, it’s just underneath the Pleiades. As always,, you would need a very good telescope to get a good view of Uranus. We’re seeing it at just magnitude 5.6, locally magnitude 5.78 due to where it is in the sky. Uranus isn’t being reduced by many air masses because it is very high in the sky, though not as high as it could be from other locations. If we check how illuminated it is, it is 100%. The actual moment of opposition is a little bit later in the month, around the 21st, but it is close to it all month. Opposition is when Uranus will really be directly above the south at midnight.

We can see it here, directly above the south at a little after 12 for us here in Ireland, but only a little after 12. Once we are through to November, we will be after moving past daylight savings time, which means we don’t have to adjust for a whole hour anymore. We don’t have to wait until 1:30am to see true physical midnight, we only need to wait until a little bit after 12. It looks like around 12:45 or so is when Uranus will be right in the middle of the sky, 100% illuminated and at magnitude 5.6. This is pretty much the best time of the year to take a look at the second most distant planet, but certainly one of the most difficult planets to actually see in the sky. Neptune is that little bit harder to see, but of course, Neptune is pretty much out of the realm of possibility for most people and most types of equipment. Uranus is much closer to being visible, and because Uranus is at magnitude 5.6, it is very nearly at the kind of brightness you can see with the naked eye. Taking a close look under the Pleiades, one of the dots should actually be Uranus. It is faint, but it’s not too faint a dot to be able to see. Of course, at any other times of the year Uranus is much fainter, but if you are out in the countryside late in November, this is when Uranus will be at opposition this year, and it is going to be the best opportunity for you to see it. I would still recommend using a telescope or a binoculars, but if you’re lucky, if your eyesight’s good, if you can find a perfectly dark sky, you may well get a chance to see this very distant planet.

Those are some of the main things that are coming up in November. We’ve got our supermoon way back here on the 5th, it’s the second supermoon of the year, and it is more super than the last supermoon that we had. As we move through later in the night, we’ll start seeing things earlier and earlier, like Orion and the Hyades and Jupiter. As we come through later in the month, it’s the morning of the 10th that the Moon, Jupiter and Pollux will be in a straight line and Jupiter will look fantastic at that time. We do still have the Comet 3I/ATLAS out there to be seen, but if you do have a telescope or binoculars, it is also a fantastic time, or it will be on the 21st or so, a fantastic time to take a look for that planet Uranus.

I hope you get a chance to see some of those interesting things in the sky, we’re just getting to the start of November, so of course there’ll be plenty more to talk about during the coming month. If you enjoyed this piece, please do like it, and if you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Most importantly, thank you for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.