Sky Diary

The highest point in the sky, due south, is occupied by Andromeda during November mid-evenings. The Square of Pegasus is still prominent slightly west of due south and the upper left hand star of the Square, Alpheratz, is actually the brightest star of Andromeda. The line of rather less bright stars which extend north-westward from Alpheratz are all within Andromeda although they appear to form the back leg of the flying horse. This is the time to have a look at our nearest large galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, at a distance of 2.5 million light years. This galaxy is rather larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy with a diameter of 150,000 light years and contains around one trillion stars. Look two stars left of Alpheratz, then two fainter stars upwards and, if you have good eyesight and it is a dark moonless night, you may just see a faint ellipse of light. This is the Andromeda Galaxy and you will see it more easily if you use binoculars or a small telescope. Because of its distance, what you are seeing is light which left the galaxy 2.5 million years ago, so you are looking back in time to the galaxy as it was then!

Following Andromeda to the east are the constellations of Perseus, Auriga and Gemini, with Orion rising in the east. By 10pm the familiar arrangement of the three stars of Orion’s belt, orange Betelgeuse above and blue supergiant star, Rigel, below are unmistakable as this most famous of constellations rises during November nights. There is much in these constellations to see as they swing to their highest place in the sky over the next few months.

The November meteor shower is the Leonid shower which appear to radiate from the constellation of Leo. Maximum this year occurs at 6pm on the 17th November, so I suggest you look at a nice dark area of your sky on the nights of the 16-17th and 17-18th when most will be seen. The Moon will be 27 days old and so its light will not interfere with the bright meteors. The particles which strike the Earth’s upper atmosphere originate from Comet Tempel-Tuttle which has a 33 year orbit of the Earth. Because of this there may be large numbers of meteors seen every 33 years as occurred spectacularly in 1833 and 1966. Unfortunately this year the Earth does not intersect with any of the comet’s previous orbits and we are only likely to see around 20 per hour. This number should rise significantly towards the end of the 2020s.

_{Sky Notes courtesy of Ken Kennedy of Dundee Astronomical Association}