Another Day, Another Lecture... ... And Another 82 Acronyms.

What’s Up November 2017

What’s Up For November?

Dawn pairing of Jupiter and Venus, Moon shines near star clusters, meteor activity all month long!

This month binoculars will come in handy–to view the moon, star clusters, and a close pairing of Venus and Jupiter.

You can’t miss bright Venus in the predawn sky. This month Venus pairs up with Jupiter on the morning of November 13th.

The Leonids peak on a moonless November 17th. Expect no more than 10 meteors an hour around 3:00 a.m., the height of the shower.

The Northern and Southern sub-branches of the Taurid meteor shower offer sparse counts of about 5 meteors per hour, but slow, bright meteors are common.

The nearby November Orionids peak on the 28th. In contrast to the Taurids, the Orionids are swift. But don’t expect more than 3 meteors per hour.

The moon glides by three beautiful star clusters in the morning sky this month, and a pair of binoculars will allow you to see the individual stars in the clusters. Aim your binoculars at the Pleiades and the moon on the 5th.

Then aim at the Messier or M-35 cluster and the moon on the 7th and the Beehive cluster and the moon on the 10th.

Meanwhile, at dusk, catch Saturn as it dips closer to the western horizon and pairs up with Mercury on the 24th through the 28th.

Also, Comet C/2017 O1 should still be a binocular-friendly magnitude 7 or 8 greenish object in November. Use Polaris, the North Star as a guide. Look in the East to Northeast sky in the late evening.  

Watch the full What’s Up for November Video: 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

Tomorrow, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will perform a “touch and go” maneuver with the asteroid Bennu, with the intent to collect a sample and return it to Earth. As the spacecraft orbited Bennu, a team of 3,600 people, including myself, analyzed 4,500 images to mark every crater, rock, and boulder in order to find the ideal spot for the “TAG”. We made 14 million notations! https://www.facebook.com/OSIRISREx/videos/2826486524306208/?vh=e&extid=0&d=n #bennu #osirisrex #space #tobennuandback @nasa @nasasolarsystem #nasaeducation https://www.instagram.com/p/CGjSy_yDuM-/?igshid=10jw6a0fmwa2h

My third attempt at Mars. I didn’t use a filter on this one, but I’m going to try a red filter tonight. #celestrontelescope #celestron127slt #backyardastronomy #mars #planets https://www.instagram.com/p/CGUu8Xnj12b/?igshid=i4jdoaqhd4c7

Working with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, I captured and processed the “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula. It doesn’t quiet compare to the Hubble Space Telescope’s capture, but I’m proud of it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDvPyrWDz-m/?igshid=1uyp3ajel3e1i

Ascent Abort-2 crew module arrives in Houston in Orion’s March newsletter: http://bit.ly/OrionMar18

Sportin’ my new NASA 2020 Launch America hat. @nasa @spacex #crewdragon #nasa #launchamerica #space #iss @issnationallab @iss #issspacestationambassador https://www.instagram.com/p/CCeL0snnX9q/?igshid=1kqjqeyt1forw

Watch as four astronauts ride their Crew Dragon Spacecraft, Resilience, to the ISS at 7:27pm. https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive #launchamerica #spacex #internationalspacestation #iss #nasasocial https://www.instagram.com/p/CHoM_B_DOpK/?igshid=1pjfltezp9w7p

Sorta clear skies last night. This is one of my favorite regions on the Moon. The area includes the Apennine Mountains. The tallest one, Mons Huygens, is 18,000 feet tall. For perspective, the Matterhorn in Switzerland is 14,692 feet tall. My shot is a single image, so it’s a little fuzzy. It was too windy tonight to work how I intended. #celestron127slt #moon #astronomy #backyardastronomy https://www.instagram.com/p/B-gp_GjHgCF/?igshid=r2fjudkd7etm

A re-edit of one of my favorite images from a previous visit to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. #spaceshuttle @rocketcenterusa @nasa #nasa #usspaceandrocketcenter #space #marshallspaceflightcenter #huntsvilleal (at U.S. Space & Rocket Center) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_9DbjPHTj4/?igshid=ihu7m7gkszlw

This is probably one of the coolest images I’ve ever processed! This is Jupiter’s moon, Europa. As the Juno spacecraft orbits Jupiter, it can sometimes point its camera away from the planet itself. Here’s the catch, Jupiter is millions of miles from Earth and it takes power to transmit data. Therefore, Juno transmits barebones images and data. It’s up to us here on Earth to use computers to piece the data together and process the images. #nasa #juno #jupiter #space #solarsystemambassador #europa https://www.instagram.com/p/CdUh1l-OTAH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=