November brings a busy schedule of predawn and evening planet viewing, with Mars and Jupiter prominent in the morning sky, Venus climbing higher before sunrise and Mercury emerging after midmonth. Daylight Saving Time ends on Nov. 1, when clocks are turned back one hour from 1 to 2 a.m., repeating that hour and making the day 25 hours long. A clenched fist held at arm's length covers roughly 10 degrees of sky, a useful gauge for the separations described here.
Venus, which was at inferior conjunction on Oct. 24, rises in the east-southeast and gains height quickly at mid-northern latitudes because of the steep angle of the ecliptic at dawn in late autumn. It rises 55 minutes before the sun on Nov. 1, and by Nov. 5 observers around 40 degrees north latitude see it come up one hour and 25 minutes before sunrise and stand 15 degrees above the horizon at sunrise. By the end of November it rises nearly three hours before the sun and hangs nearly 35 degrees high at sunrise. Venus brightens all month and reaches peak brightness on Nov. 29 at magnitude -4.9; early in the month a telescope may show it only a few percent illuminated, and its light can cast shadows on snow.
Venus passes near the first-magnitude star Spica in Virgo on the morning of Nov. 3, when the star sits 2.4 degrees to its upper right, and comes closest to Spica on the morning of Nov. 19 at 1.8 degrees to the star's upper left. On the morning of Nov. 7, a waning crescent moon, Venus and Spica gather low in the east-southeast about an hour before sunrise, grouped within a circle about 2 degrees across.
Mars, at magnitude +0.9, is in Leo and is easy to find on the morning of Nov. 2, when it sits a couple of degrees left of the moon and 5 degrees upper right of the brighter Jupiter. After more than a year hidden in the sun's glare or the early morning hours, Mars now rises in the east before midnight and closes in on Jupiter nightly. The two are in conjunction on Nov. 16, with Mars passing 1.2 degrees to the upper left of Jupiter, which outshines it 13-fold. On the morning of Nov. 26, Mars, brightened to magnitude +0.6, passes 1.7 degrees upper left of the first-magnitude star Regulus, offering a striking color contrast in binoculars.
Jupiter offers a steady telescopic view by 3 a.m., though its cloud belts and Red Spot show most clearly when it is highest in the southeast soon after dawn. Shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 3, the moon rises low in the east-northeast with Regulus a degree to its left and Jupiter about 5 degrees above it. Late on Nov. 29 into the early hours of Nov. 30, the waning gibbous moon, Jupiter, Regulus and Mars gather low in the east-northeast across roughly 7 degrees, with the best views near dawn as they soar high in the southern sky.
Saturn sits in the northeast corner of Cetus the Whale and crosses the southern meridian around 9:45 p.m. at the start of November and about two hours earlier at month's end, well placed all evening for telescopic views of its ball and rings. At magnitude +0.6 it is the brightest point of light in its region, identifiable by its steady yellowish glow. On the evening of Nov. 18 it appears about 6 degrees below the waxing gibbous moon.
Mercury is hidden during inferior conjunction with the sun on Nov. 4 and emerges in the eastern morning sky after the second week of the month for an excellent apparition for the Northern Hemisphere. It reaches greatest western elongation, 20 degrees from the sun, on Nov. 20, its most favorable morning apparition of the year for mid-northern observers. From Nov. 16 to Nov. 26 it rises in the east-southeast before astronomical twilight, more than 95 minutes before sunrise, appearing as a very bright star far to the lower left of Venus.
