In the Sky This Month

The Moon will pass quite close to Pluto today. For most American skywatchers, Pluto will stand just to the upper right of the Moon as they rise this afternoon, and a little farther to the lower right of the Moon after night falls.

The Moon is a beautiful crescent this evening, low in the southwest at nightfall. The planet Saturn stands close to the lower right of the Moon, and looks like a bright golden star. They set a few hours after sunset.

The planet Saturn stands near the upper left of the Moon this evening. It looks like a bright star. Through a small telescope, its biggest moon, Titan, looks like a tiny star quite close to the giant planet.

A Mayan myth says the world formed when the World Tree, represented by the Milky Way, was raised into the sky. The Great Celestial Bird landed in its branches. The bird may be represented by W-shaped Cassiopeia, which is in the north this evening.

The constellation Perseus climbs high across the sky on autumn nights. Among other wonders, it is home to a beautiful red nebula whose outline resembles the state of California. It is 65 light-years long and almost 1,500 light-years from Earth.

The Cartwheel galaxy is in the constellation Sculptor, which passes low across the south on November evenings. The galaxy spans about 150,000 light-years. It has a ring of old, red stars in its middle, with a brighter ring of younger, bluer stars outside it.

The Moon will be new at 10:02 a.m. CST tomorrow. The Moon passes between Earth and Sun when it is new, so it is lost from view. It should return to view as a thin crescent shortly after sunset Thursday or Friday.

Venus, our closest planetary neighbor, stands close to the right of the Moon at sunrise tomorrow. They are quite low in the sky, though, so you need a clear horizon to spot them.

Venus is returning to view as the brilliant “morning star.” It is quite low in the east as twilight paints the dawn sky. Venus will stand well below the crescent Moon tomorrow, and closer to the right of the Moon on Tuesday.

Daylight Saving Time ends tonight. We’ll set our clocks back an hour as we revert to Standard Time. The standard time zones were formalized just 100 years ago, when Congress adopted the zones set up by the railroads decades earlier.