12.0°

Winter has almost arrived (snow anybody, though?) and that means that the bounty of the beautiful winter sky charms us once more. The accompanying chart is set for 12 a.m. in early November, for 11 p.m. in the middle of the month, and for late in the month. To use (parts of) the chart during the early evening, imagine rotating everything clockwise around the P of Polaris; thus stars in the east appear closer to the horizon earlier in the evening, stars in the west appear higher in the southern sky.

During the following description, stars with an asterisk attached to them are marked with a letter on the chart.

The constellations of Orion, Taurus, Auriga and Gemini are visible in the southeast. Inside these constellations are the bright stars of winter: red Betelgeuse* and Aldebaran*, blue Rigel*, yellow Capella* and the twins' Castor* and Pollux*; the latter two make a fine triangle with Mars.

Also included is the star cluster of the Pleiades, best viewed with binoculars through which up to 50 stars may be seen. Soon the bright stars Procyon and Sirius will follow as they rise in the southeast later in the evening.

Now near the zenith are Cassiopeia's W, the House of Cepheus, Pegasus' Great Square and the swan Cygnus' Northern Cross. Always in the same place is the Little Dipper with Polaris* and atop the northern horizon appears the Big Dipper. The kite-shaped Bootes with red Arcturus is now setting while the summer triangle consisting of Deneb* (the Swan's tail), Vega* and Altair* is getting closer to the western horizon.

Right now Jupiter (the brightest night object, save our moon, in the entire sky these days), Neptune and Uranus can be spotted in Capricornus and Aquarius just above the southern horizon, with the best views during early evenings; on how to find the latter two, check out skypub.com (specifically http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/Uranus_Neptune09.pdf) which has some good finder charts and also features an online interactive star map.

Throughout the month, as Jupiter is moving west to east (a planet's true motion as seen against the stars), i.e. right to left, the giant planet is closing in on Neptune, reducing their distance from 6 to 3 degrees (they will meet on Dec. 20). The first-quarter half moon stands above Jupiter and Neptune on Nov. 23.

Uranus is just east (left) from these two planets, straight down from the Great Square and just below the Circlet of Pisces (which isn't shown on my rudimentary chart). The by now waxing gibbous moon passes above Uranus from the Nov. 25 to 26.

Mars rises around midnight throughout the month and it and the closest bright star, Regulus in Leo, stand highest in the south at around 7 a.m. So if you commute around that time, especially to Homer or through Turnagain Pass going south, that red planet is guiding you.

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, Mars is passing through the pretty Beehive cluster in Cancer; I consider it pretty because it's second in brightness only to the Pleiades, can be seen with the unaided eye, and, well looks handsomely in binoculars. The third-quarter half moon passes beneath Mars on the Nov. 8 and 9. (The orbits of the planet and of our moon are tilted or inclined with our own orbit, which explains why our moon is able to pass beneath one planet and above another.)

Saturn rises around 5 a.m. Virgo's brightest star Spica, Saturn, Regulus, and Mars produce a line of bright objects stretching across the southeast and southern sky before sunrise, with the stars of winter, Pollux, Castor, Procyon, Betelgeuse, etc., picking up the slack in the southwestern sky. The waning crescent moon is below Saturn on the Nov. 12.

Venus, although much brighter than all other planets (only Jupiter is able to match it occasionally), may be hard to see because it's rising just before our sun in the southeast. It is joined by a very thin crescent on Nov. 14.

Mercury is exactly on the other side of the Sun, "an event that's rare but completely unobservable" (Sky & Telescope, November 2009, p.48).

The Leonid meteor shower peaks between midnight and dawn of Nov. 17. As Earth passes through the orbit of comet Temple-Tuttle, pieces of debris from that comet, strewn throughout its orbit, are entering Earth's atmosphere where they evaporate (because the atmosphere decelerates them so much that a lot of their kinetic energy is transformed into heat, hot enough to be easily and spectacularly seen).

Since the orbits of Earth and Temple-Tuttle cross in a place in our solar system where we are facing the constellation Leo, these meteors seem to emanate from that constellation and are thus called Leonids.

Visit the Challenger Learning Center in Kenai on Nov. 20 for their Star Party, from 6 to 8 p.m. Call 283-2000 fro more information.

Andy Veh is an associate professor of physics and mathematics at Kenai Peninsula College.