Looking Up: November's Night Sky

By Gibnebula

The clocks have gone back, and for stargazers on the Rock that is the best news of the year. Darkness now arrives before dinner, so you can enjoy some of the finest sights in the sky without staying up late. Last month we welcomed Orion back to our skies. This month we meet his neighbours: a bull with a fiery red eye, a cluster of stars so famous that a car company named itself after it, and a pair of planets side by side before dawn. So let's look up! 

Constellations to Explore 

Taurus, the Bull 

Face east at around 11pm, when Orion has fully risen. Find his Belt, three stars in a short, almost upright line, and follow it upwards. The first bright star you reach glows orange. This is Aldebaran, the fiery eye of Taurus the Bull and a giant star around 65 light-years away. 

Aldebaran, who’s name comes from the Arabic for "the follower" because it trails the seven sisters (the Pleiades) across the sky all night, sits in front of a V-shaped scatter of stars called the Hyades, which forms the Bull's face, with two longer lines of stars marking his horns. 

Orion and the Bull 

Together they make one of the oldest scenes in the sky: Orion the hunter with his club raised, and Taurus charging at him head down. 

The Greeks said the hunter was never after the Bull at all. Orion had fallen for the Seven Sisters (the Pleiades), the daughters of Atlas, and chased them for years. To keep them safe, Zeus turned them into stars. But Orion ended up in the sky too, and the chase carries on every night, with the Bull standing guard between them. Watch for a few hours and you will see it: the Sisters rise first, the Bull follows, and Orion is always one step behind. 

Planet Watch 

Jupiter now rises in the east around 1am, a little earlier each night, and shines brilliantly in Leo until dawn. Look just beside it for a fainter, orange-tinted point of light: Mars. Between 15 and 17 November the two appear only the width of your little finger apart. Look high in the south-east around 6am. 

Saturn shines steadily in the south in the evening and sets in the early hours. On the evening of 20 November, the Moon sits just above it, making it easy to find.  

Deep Space Spotlight 

The Pleiades 

To the naked eye, the Pleiades are a neat little knot of stars. Through a telescope, and with a few hours of patience, something unexpected appears: wisps of blue haze curling around the brightest stars like smoke. In Japan the cluster is called Subaru, which is why the car company's logo is a little cluster of stars. 

That blue glow is cosmic dust the cluster happens to be drifting through. It does not shine by itself; it reflects the light of the hot, young stars, much as our own sky turns blue by scattering sunlight. The stars are around 100 million years old, born while dinosaurs still walked the Earth. 

The Pleiades lie about 444 light-years away. The light in this photograph left the cluster around 1580, only a generation after the Charles V Wall was built across the Rock. 

The Beaver Moon 

November's Full Moon is traditionally called the Beaver Moon, from the time of year when beavers retreat to their lodges and trappers set their last traps before the water freezes. It is also known as the Frost Moon. 

On 24 November it rises close to the Pleiades. Look low in the east just after moonrise, around 6pm; binoculars will show both in the same view. 

The Moon's phases for November are: 

• Last Quarter: 1 November 

• New Moon: 9 November 

• First Quarter: 17 November 

• Full Moon (Beaver Moon): 24 November 

Astronomical Highlights 

The Leonid Meteor Shower 

The Leonids peak on the night of 17–18 November. They are dust shed by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings past the Sun every 33 years, and they are the fastest of any major shower, striking our atmosphere at around 70 kilometres per second. 

In a normal year you might see around 15 an hour. But the Leonids are famous for their storms. In November 1833, observers in North America reported tens of thousands of meteors an hour, so many that people woke their neighbours believing the stars were falling from the sky. 

This year the half-lit Moon sets around midnight, so the best time to watch is from about 3am until dawn. Find a spot with an open view east, such as Catalan Bay or Sandy Bay, and give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust. 

The Taurids: slow and bright 

Keep an eye out, too, for the Taurids, two gentle showers that peak on 5 and 12 November. They produce only a handful of meteors an hour, but they are slow and sometimes surprisingly bright fireballs. With the New Moon on 9 November, conditions this year are excellent. 

Fact of the Month 

The planet found during the Great Siege 

Uranus was the first planet ever discovered with a telescope. On 13 March 1781, William Herschel was scanning the sky from his back garden in Bath when he noticed a "star" that looked like a tiny disc instead of a point of light. Over the following nights it moved. He had found a new world, doubling the size of the known Solar System overnight. 

At that very moment, Gibraltar was almost two years into the Great Siege. While the garrison watched the Spanish and French lines by night, a man with a homemade telescope in England was quietly redrawing our night sky. 

Moon Night for GBC Open Day 

This November, GibNebula is bringing its telescopes to Commonwealth Park for a good cause: a free public Moon night on Saturday 21 November from 7:30pm, in aid of GBC Open Day. 

Come along, look through our telescopes and get to know our cosmic neighbour. No experience needed; all ages welcome. For updates, visit gibnebula.gi or follow GibNebula on social media. 

Looking Ahead 

December brings the longest nights with the winter solstice on 21 December, and a Full Moon in the early hours of Christmas Eve. It also brings a meteor shower that many astronomers call the best of the year, with the Moon almost entirely out of the way. We also showcase a very festive Nebula. Can you guess which one it is?