Sky-Wire November ☄️ Leonid Meteor Shower, Mars Meets Jupiter & Andromeda Galaxy
The Leonid Meteor Shower ☄️
On the night of November 17th, the Leonid Meteor Shower reaches its peak, with the best viewing after midnight and before dawn on the 18th. The Leonids are famous for their speed: these meteors slam into our atmosphere at about 71 km per second (roughly 44 miles per second), making them some of the fastest meteors of the year.
Every November, Earth passes through the trail of dust left behind by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. In a typical year you can expect around 10–15 meteors per hour under dark skies, and the Leonids are known for the occasional bright fireball. This is also the shower behind the legendary meteor storms of 1833 and 1966!
This year the timing works in our favor. The first-quarter Moon sets around midnight, just as the radiant in Leo's "Sickle" climbs into the eastern sky. No telescope needed: grab a reclining chair, dress warmly, and use a red flashlight to protect your night vision. If clouds roll in, the morning of the 17th makes a great backup.
Mars Meets Jupiter 🔴🪐
Early risers are in for a treat this month! Before dawn on November 15th and 16th, Mars and Jupiter appear only about 1.2° apart, close enough to share the same binocular field, high in the southern sky in the constellation Leo.
Jupiter is the brilliant one at magnitude −2.1, while Mars glows a softer orange at magnitude +0.7 just to its upper left. The bright star Regulus, the heart of Leo, sits only about 4° away, completing a lovely trio. The pair rises around 11:30 PM, and the best views come between about 4:00 and 5:30 AM, when they're highest.
Through a telescope, you can pick out Jupiter's cloud belts and its four Galilean moons, while Mars shows a tiny ochre disk. They look like neighbors, but Jupiter is actually hundreds of millions of miles farther away. It's a great example of how a simple line of sight can create a stunning view!
Andromeda Galaxy (M31) 🌌✨
Looking for a showpiece deep-sky target? The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object most people can see with the naked eye. The light reaching your eyes tonight left it about 2.5 million years ago! It's a giant spiral and the largest galaxy in our Local Group.
In November, Andromeda rides high in the evening sky. To find it, start at the Great Square of Pegasus, hop from its corner star Alpheratz two stars east to Mirach, then turn north past the fainter star Mu Andromedae, and you're there. You can also use Cassiopeia's "W" as a pointer.
Under dark skies it appears as an elongated, misty glow. Binoculars show its bright core, and a telescope at low power adds its two companion galaxies, M32 and M110. The moonless evenings of about November 4th–14th are the best time to look!
