Minnesota Starwatch for November 2003

Starwatch Newsletter

Minnesota Starwatch is a newsletter describing the night sky in the Midwest.

It is updated monthly, and is produced by the
Department of Astronomy, University of Minnesota
116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Minnesota Starwatch for November 2003

Hello, this is Minnesota Starwatch for November 2003. The month begins with the first quarter moon on the 1st. Full moon is on the 8th, third quarter is on the 17th, and new moon on the 23rd. On the night of Nov. 8th the full moon will be eclipsed by the Earth's shadow. The event will start soon after sunset as the moon rises in the eastern sky; the whole spectacle will be over by midnight, but the totality itself will last for only 25 minutes. Watch the orange, light and dark brown colors of the moon as it goes through the various stages of its eclipse. Some of you might have watched another spectacular lunar eclipse earlier this year, on May 16, 2003. If you happen to be in Antarctica, or the southern tip of South America, Australia or New Zealand, you will be treated to a yet another eclipse later in the same month of November, this time a total eclipse of the Sun, which will take place during the new moon, on the 23rd.

In other news this month, Mars will be visible in the southern sky after dark. Even though it will be quite bright throughout the month, its brightness will be diminishing steadily with time, because it is getting more and more distant from Earth. In the first couple of days of the month Mars can be seen very close to the gibbous moon after sundown. Venus can be seen after sunset in the southwest sky; it sets about an hour after the sun. The planet keeping even closer to the Sun in the sky is Mercury; it will become visible just after sunset in the last days of November. After finding Venus and Mercury in the evening sky, wait for another hour or two and you will be able to see Uranus and Neptune, especially if you have a pair of binoculars to help you search the skies. These two outlying members of our planetary family will reach their highest elevation above the southern horizon at nightfall. Jupiter will rise in the early hours of the morning during the first half of the month, and at midnight later in the month. Saturn will be fainter than Jupiter; it will rise around 8pm. The Leonid meteor show, a regular November event, will take place on the 18th before dawn. However, this year's display will be modest compared to those of some previous years.

Minnesota Starwatch is available on-line at http://www.astro.umn.edu

For fun Astronomy Outreach programs'check out our Public Outreach link, or if your interested in how you can help build the new Minnesota Planetarium, please call 612-630-6151 or visit http://www.mplanetarium.org.

Como Planetarium is offering fun family shows about astronomy on a limited basis; please call 651-293-5398 for more info! This has been Minnesota Starwatch, produced by the University of Minnesota Astronomy Department.