MERCURY begins the month in the evening sky, at greatest eastern elongation (24 degrees) from the Sun on the 3rd but too low in the South West to be observable with the naked eye. At inferior conjunction on the 24th it passes between the Earth and Sun to emerge into the morning sky and in mid- December will rise two hours before the Sun to become visible low in the southeast dawn sky.

Venus has been visible in bright evening twilight since May. In November it moves into a darker sky, setting more than 2h after the Sun by the 30th when it will be a brilliant -4.5 magnitude object in the South West after sunset. It will be at greatest eastern elongation (47°) on the 3rd. Venus will remain prominent in the South West into the New Year. Crescent Moon close below on the 5th. Mars is at opposition on the 7th when it reaches -2.3 magnitude. In Aries it will be high in the South at midnight. Closest approach to the Earth was on October 30. Moon close by on the 14th.

Jupiter was in conjunction with the Sun in October and in November emerges into the morning sky. At -1.7 magnitude it should be visible in Virgo low in the eastern twilight from mid-month. Waning crescent Moon close by on the 29th. Saturn is now 0.2 magnitude and in Cancer, rising in the North East by 21h in late November. It is stationary on the 22nd. Waning Moon above on the 21st. Uranus is in Aquarius and stationary on the 16th, setting about 23h by the 30th. Moon near by on the 9th.

Neptune is in Capricornus setting about 21h by the 30th. Moon near by on the 8th. The Moon: new 2d 01h, first quarter 9d 02h, full 16d 01h, last quarter 23d 22h. Crescent Moon near Spica on the 28th. The Leonids meteor shower, which has given such great displays in the past decade, has now declined to a much lower and more usual level of activity. In any case, with the full Moon on the 16th coinciding with maximum activity on the 16th-18th, little can be expected.

With the end of British Summer Time, the times used in these notes become the same as clock time. The main advantage of keeping to one time all the year is that it avoids confusion. In Universal Time (UT, the same as the old Greenwich Mean Time) the stars rise two hours earlier each month and the progression of the Moon and planets is uniform. Also the change between BST and UT does not come exactly at the end or beginning of a month but rather on a Saturday night, whenever that occurs. Use of BST would be very confusing in those two months, October and March.

The times taken for the planets to make one revolution round the Sun vary from 88 days for Mercury to 165 years for Neptune. The nearer a planet is to the Sun the faster it moves and it also has a smaller orbit to complete. The general direction of motion of the planets on the sky is eastwards and is called direct though at times this is reversed and called retrograde. The inner planets Mercury and Venus overtake the Earth while the Earth overtakes the planets from Mars to Neptune.

As Mars is the nearest of the outer planets the effect of this overtaking is most noticeable and it is the best example. We see the planets against the background of the stars and these are so far away that any slight change in apparent direction as the Earth moves is not discernable.

About the time of opposition Mars’s eastwards motion against the stars slows and then it moves westwards until after opposition when it again resumes eastwards motion until shortly before the next opposition, in about 26 months time. Where the motion is reversed Mars is said to be stationary. Depending on the relative positions of the Earth and Mars, Mars may describe on the sky a long shallow figure south or a complete loop. In 2005 Mars motion was direct until October 1 when it reversed until December 10. With Mars above the horizon all night this November is a good time to watch his movement from night to night (weather permitting).

Another event this month, more of theoretical interest this time, is the near-simultaneous greatest eastern elongation of Mercury and Venus on the 3rd. Taking within 24h to be nearsimultaneous the astronomer Jean Meeus found the mean frequency of such events to be once in 93 years and that between the years 1800 and 2300 only seven near-simultaneous elongations take place on the same side of the Sun, four western and three eastern.

Even so it occurred last on March 19, 2004, while the next previous events were in 1847 and 1849. The next will not be until 2134. He also found that nearsimultaneous inferior conjunctions took place in 1985 and 1988 but not again until 2154.