November is the time of year when Jupiter gets big and bright at night, but sky watchers can also catch more sparkles via the Taurids and Leonids meteor showers. Amid the shine and space glitter, the Perseus family of constellations will also reach their peak settings this month.
Starting the month off with its annual oohs and ahs, Jupiter will be at perigee — its closest point to Earth — the evening between Nov. 1 and 2. The following night, the red-spotted planet will be at opposition when the Earth orbits into position between it and the sun. Jupiter will be fully illuminated by the sun at its closest approach to Earth, but it will be hard to miss in the night sky all this month even without a telescope.
The events will give pristine views of the solar system’s largest planet.
“If you’re in the city and you just happen to be on your roof, or if you happen to be on a street corner, you can use your telescope and point straight at Jupiter and you should be able to see it with no issue,” said Kat Troche, vice president of operations for the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York.
Part of the Taurids will peak later in the week — on the night between Nov. 5 and 6, while the other portion peaks between Nov. 11 and 12, according to the American Meteor Society.
By mid-November, another meteor shower will fly over town. The Leonids peak between Nov. 17 and 18.
The biggest gas giant and its four moons
A telescope can reveal Jupiter’s four largest moons: Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io – also known as the Galilean moons because astronomer Galileo Galilei first recorded them more than 400 years ago. NASA estimates that Jupiter has between 80 and 95 moons.
“It will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long,” Troche said of Jupiter at opposition.
The Galilean moons will look like bright dots on either side of Jupiter and will cast shadows on the planet’s surface as they orbit around it. Jupiter’s white, orange, brown, red and yellow stripes are windy storm clouds of ammonia and water floating in the planet’s hydrogen and helium atmosphere. Some of the bands are wider than the Earth and move at hundreds of miles per hour.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a gargantuan storm that started hundreds of years ago. It’s bigger than the Earth, but despite its size, it’s not always visible from here. The planet makes a full rotation every 10 hours.
Sky and Telescope has a calculator to help you time your viewing window for a glimpse of the spot. Here’s a list of East Coast viewing times during night and predawn for the first few days of the month.
- Nov. 1, 2023 at 6:36 p.m.
- Nov. 2, 2023 at 4:31 a.m.
- Nov. 3, 2023 at 12:22 a.m.
- Nov. 3, 2023 at 8:13 p.m.
- Nov. 4, 2023 at 6:09 a.m.
- Nov. 5, 2023 at 1 a.m.
- Nov. 5, 2023 at 8:51 p.m.
- Nov. 7, 2023 at 2:38 a.m.
- Nov. 7, 2023 at 10:29 p.m.
“Jupiter is this very, very bright, steady light as it starts to rise from the northeast,” Troche said. “It’ll start creeping up around 11 p.m., and you can’t miss it. It is incredibly bright.”
November meteor showers
The Taurids, the first of two meteor showers this month, are named for the constellation Taurus, from where its shooting stars radiate. The meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky — even without first locating the constellation.
The Taurids are the spectacular debris left by Comet Encke. It’s a small comet with a diameter of nearly 3 miles and an orbit of just over three years. When its cosmic dust hits the Earth’s atmosphere at 65,000 miles per hour, it creates this annual light show. While it’s considered a small shower, it can produce up to 10 shooting stars per hour, which travel at 17 miles per second.
“The best viewing would be after midnight from a very dark location,” Troche said.
The Leonid meteor shower will peak with 15 shooting stars per hour on the evening between Nov. 17 to 18.
NASA/Ames Research Center/ISAS/Shinsuke Abe and Hajime Yano
For the best views of the Leonids, the month’s second meteor shower, seek out a dark location outside of New York City, just after midnight between Nov. 17 and 18. Its meteors radiate from the Leo constellation toward the east, with the primary star, Regulus.
If you can’t get out of town and away from city lights, Jackie Faherty, from the American Museum of Natural History, recommends viewing the Leonids from a rooftop or on the water.
“The better thing is to have the most vast amount of sky you can get,” said Faherty, who works in the museum’s astrophysics and education departments. “You want to scan the sky. You want to be able to see as much of the sky as possible so that you can see anywhere around you.”
The Leonids can produce about 15 shooting stars per hour traveling at 44 miles per second during its peak. The meteor shower was produced from the dust left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Observers first recorded the small comet in 1865 — it has a diameter of just over 2 miles and takes 33 years to orbit.
The Taurid meteor shower peaks with up to 10 shooting stars per hour on the evening of November 5 to 6, according to the American Meteor Society.
NASA/Meteoroid Environment Office/All-sky Fireball Network
The Leonids can produce fireballs, explosions with colorful tails that last longer than a meteor streak.
“This year it should be a particularly good one because it’s happening when the moon is on the newish side,” Faherty said.
Constellations to watch for
As the Greek legend goes, Cepheus and Cassiopeia got married, and had a very beautiful daughter named Andromeda. The mother did something an ancient Greek parent should never do – she offended the gods by saying her daughter was more beautiful than the immortals. In revenge, Poseidon sent a flood and the sea monster Cetus to destroy the kingdom.
When Cepheus consulted an oracle, it told him the only way to stop the destruction of his country was to offer Andromeda as a sacrifice to Cetus. So, Cepheus chained his daughter to a seaside cliff to await her death at the jaws of an angry monster.
But the monster didn’t get his treat. Instead, Perseus saved Andromeda, married her and made her his queen. The characters of this ancient tale are best seen during November nights.
The Perseus family of constellations peaks this month.
National Park Service
“All of these constellations that you can look for tell this old school mythology story like the soap opera of the sky,” Faherty said. “They’re all up as high as they’re going to get for you in the sky in the month of November.”
People can locate these constellations by first pinpointing the easiest set of stars to find in the sky – the Big Dipper.
“The Big Dipper is bright and brilliant,” Faherty said. “Use those stars as your compass to find all the other things in the sky.”
Sky watchers can orient themselves using the two guide stars in the cup of the Big Dipper that lead to Polaris, the North Star. Follow the arc of the Big Dipper to another star called Arcturus, part of the herdsman constellation. Straight down from there is a third star called Spica, part of the Virgo constellation.
“These will be some of your guiding stars,” Faherty said. “Once you’ve got a couple constellations down, you can locate all of the others.”
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