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This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the week ending Wednesday, November 12, 2014. Here is what’s happening in the skies of southern California:
The moon is full on Thursday the 6th. The full moon in November is sometimes called the Frosty Moon. On following nights, the moon appears in waning gibbous phase before the 14th. By Saturday the 8th, the moon rises after darkness falls.
The orange planet Mars appears as bright as a first-magnitude star. Thirty minutes after sunset, Mars can first be seen 28 degrees above the west-southwest horizon. It sets three hours later.
The brightest night-time star, Sirius, in Canis Major the Large Dog, is eye-catching in the southeast starting at about 10:30 p.m. Because of distortions caused by our moving atmosphere, Sirius sparkles with glints of different colors when it appears close to the horizon on clear November nights. Sirius is at its highest and due south (on the meridian) at 3:30 a.m. It reaches that point about half an hour earlier each week.
Jupiter, in Leo the Lion, is well positioned for observation during the late night and early morning. It rises in the east at 11:15 p.m., and is bright enough to see until sunrise, when it is 70 degrees high in the south.
The International Space Station will make two passes high above southern California early on the mornings of Sunday the 9th and Monday the 10th. On Sunday the 9th, the ISS will cross the sky from west-southwest to northeast between 5:35 and 5:42 a.m. It is highest, 58 degrees above the northwest horizon, at 5:38 a.m. On Monday morning, the ISS will abruptly emerge from earth’s shadow already 45 degrees high in the south-southwest, and will climb to 67 degrees high in the southeast before moving to the northeast horizon at 4:52 a.m. On both mornings, the ISS should outshine Jupiter.
A milestone in the exploration of the solar system is scheduled to take place at 8:00 a.m., PST on Wednesday, November 12 when, for the first time, a space probe will attempt to land on a comet. The Philae probe of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta project is expected to land on the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which Rosetta has been studying up-close for the last two months. Look for live coverage on the main ESA website.
Free views of the sun during the day and of the moon, planets, and other celestial objects at night are available to the public in clear weather through Griffith Observatory’s telescopes from Tuesday through Sunday before 9:30 p.m. Check our website for our schedule. The next public star party on the grounds of Griffith Observatory, hosted by the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, the Sidewalk Astronomers, and the Planetary Society, will take place on Saturday, December 27.
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From Griffith Observatory, I’m Anthony Cook and I can be reached at griffithobserver@gmail.com.