By Heather Durham | October 31, 2021
Welcome to November’s edition! This should be an exciting month for sky watchers! Again this month, we have Halloween Fireballs, two splendid meteor showers and a partial lunar eclipse-the final one for this calendar year, that will also produce a blood moon.
Once again, I have added videos. The video contents contain more information than I have written about. I left them out because either they are not visible to the naked eye or they present themselves for viewing from other parts of the world. There is one for the lunar eclipse by itself.
View what and as you prefer. I’m open to any suggestions you may have. Most importantly, however, enjoy the evening skies in the month ahead!
November 8. The Moon and Venus will orbit close to one another and rise to the right.
November 10. The Moon and Saturn will rise to the right in close proximity to one another.
November 11. The Moon will reach first quarter. The Moon and Jupiter will pass by close to each other and orbit towards the right.
November 12. The Northern Taurid meteor shower from Taurus will put on a display this evening. This display is also known as Halloween Fireballs. According to Wikipedia, “Since the meteor stream is rather spread out in space, Earth takes several weeks to pass through it, compared with the much smaller periods of activity in other showers.”
November 17. The Leonid meteor shower from Leo should be prolific this evening. At its prime, it could produce nearly 13 streaks per hour.
November 19. The Beaver Moon will be full today. There will also be a partial lunar eclipse. The terms penumbra and umbra refer to distinct shadow parts generated by light reflecting on an opaque object. According to In-the-sky.org, viewing time is as follows:
| Local Time | UTC | |
| 01:03 | 06:03 | Moon begins to enter the Earth’s penumbra |
| 02:20 | 07:20 | Moon begins to enters the Earth’s umbra. Partial eclipse begins. |
| 04:04 | 09:04 | Greatest eclipse |
| 05:48 | 10:48 | Moon fully outside the Earth’s umbra. Partial eclipse ends. |
| 07:04 | 12:04 | Moon leaves the Earth’s penumbra |
November 21. Tonight, the a-monocerotid meteor shower will put on a display. This is from the Constellation Canis Minor. The speed of this shower is almost as fast as the maximum meteor shower speed.
November 27. The Moon will be in its final quarter.
November 28. The November Orionid meteor shower for this month will be active this evening from the Constellation Orion. As long as the weather is good, there should be minimal interference from the upcoming new moon.
References:
Ford, D.F. (n.d.). November 2021. Retrieved from in-the-sky.org
Wikipedia, (2021, July 4). Northern Taurids. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/Northern
YouTube. (2021, October 8), 19 November 2021 Lunar Eclipse. Retrieved from youtu.be/ppgOYkFGXQQ
YouTube. (2021, September 15). November 2021 Astronomical Events. Retrieved from youtu.be/XEzDZAOU2mA
YouTube. (2021, September 15). November 2021 Astronomical Events Coming in November 2021. Retrieved from youtu.be/lfwa0M1FKmA
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