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November 10: Seek Saturn’s two-toned moon
Venus reaches a stationary point among the stars of Virgo at 10 A.M. EST. This brings its retrograde (westward) motion to an end; after today, Venus will begin moving eastward or prograde through the sky, swinging north of Spica.
You can easily catch the bright planet in the eastern sky before dawn. Venus’ brightness has increased over just the past few days, and it now blazes at magnitude –4.7. An hour before sunrise, you’ll easily spot it alongside Spica, standing just to the star’s upper right. Both are 10° high and rising as dawn approaches. Check out Venus through a telescope: its disk shows off a crescent phase just 10% lit, but stretches an impressive 53” in the sky.
Also just becoming visible at this time is Mercury, barely 1.5° above the horizon and glowing at magnitude 1.2. See if you can locate it about 13° east (to the lower left) of Venus, although you’ll need a particularly flat horizon free of trees, buildings, and lights. Mercury, too, rises as twilight brightens, which may make the planet harder to see in the growing light. Try scanning for it with binoculars, although make sure to put them away well before sunrise from your location, which may differ from the time given below.
Sunrise: 6:41 A.M.
Sunset: 4:47 P.M.
Moonrise: 9:15 A.M.
Moonset: 6:05 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (8%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.
Alison Klesman is senior editor of Astronomy magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.
