Sirius, which follows the distinctive stars of Orion across our night sky, is around twice the size of our Sun, and sits just eight light-years away – one of our closer celestial neighbours. On Wednesday evening, Nov. 29, sky-watchers east of the Mountain Time zone will have a special treat as the shadow of Io leads the Great Red Spot across Jupiter. (Image credit: Chris Vaughan/Starry Night) You won’t see Orion and Sirius in the evening sky until northern winter (or southern summer). But presently, the Hunter and the Dog Star lord over the sky at dawn. Stars and constellations pass behind the sun Bottom line: A sign of the changing season is the return of Sirius before sunup. Be the first from your latitude to see Sirius in the morning sky. The northeastern sky on November evenings hosts the bright constellations of Perseus and W-shaped Cassiopeia, with the very bright star Capella positioned below them.

The Moon’s orbit around Earth is not completely circular, and as a result of the Moon moving closer and further away from us, its size in our skies appears to change slightly. A third shower, the Taurids, will start in the Northern Hemisphere on 20 October and be active until 10 December, peaking 12-13 November. This shower however has a low hourly rate and very slow meteors. Because of the wealth of material to draw from in preparing this hymn for publication, there are almost as many versions as there are hymnals. About half the hymnals take their text from only one of the English poets, while the rest combine couplets from both. Roughly a third of Caswall's text and half of Bridges's are never used in hymnals. June nights will host a spectacular alignment of the brighter planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all line up in the early morning sky. An illustration of the early morning sky on Sept. 19 depicting Venus at its greatest brilliancy. (Image credit: Chris Vaughan/Starry Night) Planetary, stellar and lunar meetings

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And here too will be a fine finish to those who are conducting early morning vigils for the Leonid meteors. The star Algol in the constellation of Perseus represents the glowing eye of Medusa from Greek mythology. Also designated Beta Persei, it is among the most accessible variable stars for skywatchers. When Venus appears as a full or a nearly fully illuminated disk, it appears rather small in angular size through telescopes. That's because Venus is on the other side of the sun as viewed from Earth — some 160 million miles (257 million km) away. Conversely, when Venus is passing closest to Earth— 26 million miles (42 million km) — its disk swells tremendously; roughly to 1/30 of the apparent size of the full moon. But because most of the dark side of Venus is directed toward Earth, all we can see of it at best, is an exceedingly thin crescent, perhaps no more than a few percent illuminated by the sun. This month's banner image is 'M45' by Richard Sweeney. It is one of the shortlisted images from the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. On the same morning that Venus is at greatest brilliancy (Sept. 19), wait until about an hour before sunrise and then, using your clenched fist at arm's length (which measures 10 degrees in width), go roughly "two fists" to Venus' lower left to catch sight of much fainter Mercury, the smallest planet of the solar system.

This means it is nearly dark here on the surface, but 400km (250 miles) up, the Space Station is brightly illuminated by the light of the Sun, making it unmistakably bright as it slides across the sky. On Saturday evening, Nov. 18, the terminator boundary between the moon's lit and dark hemispheres will fall just to the left of a trio of large craters named Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina that curve along the western edge of gray Mare Nectaris. Get ready for some lunar planetary conjunctions! Over a week starting on Sunday evening, Nov. 19, the waxing moon will visit four planets in succession — Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, and Uranus. Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium . He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine , the Farmers' Almanac and other publications. In fact, if you've been an early riser, it's quite possible you might have stumbled across Mercury on your own. Since Nov. 6, it has been rising at least 90 minutes before sunrise, which is also just about the same time that morning twilight is beginning. If you scan low along the east-southeast horizon about 45 minutes before sunrise, Mercury has been visible as a distinctly bright, yellowish-orange "star." The very best views of Mercury, however, are taking place right now as it is currently rising some 100 minutes before the sun. This is even before the break of dawn, so for a short while at least, Mercury will be visible against a completely dark sky.Only the brightest stars are visible to our unaided eyes on moonlit-flooded nights. In the western sky on Tuesday evening, Nov. 28, the very bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra the Harp will be descending the western sky. At magnitude 0.0, it's the 5th brightest star in the entire sky (not counting our sun).