Night Sky Events for November 2009
Deep Sky Objects and Constellations to Observe This Month
Fall and winter skies bring with them many great goodies for sky watchers everywhere to view. November introduces quite a few sky objects that will linger all winter long and into spring.
Following are just a few of these night sky events that will keep northern hemisphere observers looking up for many nights to come.
The Hyades Star Cluster
Also known as Melotte 25, the Hyades is an open cluster that lies about 150 light years away from Earth. It can be found in the Taurus constellation, high in the southeastern sky around 8:00 p.m., a few degrees to the right of Orion's "shield".
The cluster consists of about 200 stars, with about a dozen that are visible to the naked eye. The visible stars form a very distinct V-shape that marks the head of Taurus the bull.
The brightest star when looking at the cluster is Aldebaran, which is not even part of the cluster at all and lies much closer to Earth than the cluster does. The true brightest star of the Hyades is Theta 2 Tauri, also known as Phaesyla, a white giant with a magnitude of 3.4.
The Pleiades Star Cluster
The Pleiades cluster, or Seven Sisters is one of the most famous clusters in the sky. It can be found a few degrees to the right from the Hyades at around 8:00 p.m. The cluster forms the shape of a small dipper that can be seen with the naked eye.
With binoculars or a telescope many more stars become apparent, there are over a hundred of them in total. The stars appear blue and white and are surrounded by a hazy gas, which is leftover from when they were being formed.
The Pleiades are 440 light years away and are relatively young, at about 50 million years old. They are also known for their Messier designation as M45.
The Orion Constellation
The Orion constellation is one of the most beautiful and best known in the sky. Find it rising up between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. in the eastern sky this month. With its distinctive three stars that form Orion's "belt" it is quite easy to recognize and observers anywhere on Earth can see it.
Orion's brightest star is Rigel, which lies on the lower right corner of the constellation, below the three belt stars. Rigel is a main sequence star and a blue-white supergiant with an estimated mass of 17 Suns.
There are some very pretty nebulae in Orion, such as the Horsehead nebula and the Orion nebula. The Horsehead is a dark nebula that appears as a black cloud silhouetted against a bright curtain of colorful glowing gas.
The Orion nebula appears bluish with a small telescope, although with a larger one much more can be observed. More detail will be revealed about these nebulae in upcoming Night Sky Viewing installments as the constellation becomes more prevalent.
Look up as the crescent Moon will be shining on Orion's left on November 6th, when it will be in the middle of the Gemini constellation. For more on the Moon this month see Kelly Whitt's Night Sky Guide for November 2009.
Read more about Orion in the article New Observations of the Orion Nebula.
The Andromeda Galaxy
Located in the Andromeda constellation this galaxy is also visible in late summer and early fall, but in November it lies high overhead at about 9:00 p.m. where it is quite easy to spot. The Andromeda constellation's brightest star is also the northeast corner of the Pegasus square.
The Andromeda galaxy, or M31, is visible to the naked eye from a dark location as a fuzzy patch. With binoculars the elliptical shape of the nucleus becomes apparent. With a small telescope and low magnification the spiral extends about three degrees.
Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way and the largest member in the Local Group. Astronomers now know that the two galaxies, the Andromeda and the Milky Way, are drawing together and will eventually collide in about 5 billion years.
More information on some of these sky objects can be found in the article 3 Great Sky Objects for a Small Telescope.
The Andromeda Galaxy
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