Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday November 16th through Sunday November 22nd.
The moon will be at first quarter late on Saturday night into Sunday morning, so we’ll have a waxing crescent moon for all of this week.
Jupiter and Saturn are still up in the south-southwest at nightfall with Jupiter setting at 9:30 p.m. at midweek and Saturn following at 9:45 p.m. Jupiter and Saturn will be above the crescent moon on Wednesday evening and to the right of the crescent moon on Thursday evening.
Mars is up in the east-southeast at nightfall and is setting at 3:50 a.m. at midweek.
In the morning skies, Venus is rising at 4:35 a.m., still over two hours before sunrise. Mercury is rising at 5:40 a.m. and you might still be able to pick it out from the dawn twilight if you have a good view of the eastern horizon.
The Leonids meteor shower peaks in the early morning hours of Tuesday the 17th and this year there won’t be any moonlight to interfere with observing. The Leonids get their name because they appear to come from a point in the constellation Leo the Lion and they are the result of the Earth passing through the orbital debris of the comet Tempel-Tuttle. This shower is known for producing meteor storms about every 33 years, but we’re about 13 to 14 years away from the next one so this year’s activity should be around a more modest 10-20 meteors an hour at its peak.
In space anniversaries this week, 55 years ago on November 16th, the Soviet Venera 3 spacecraft launched on its mission to Venus. The probe crash-landed on Venus on March 1st 1966 and technically became the first spacecraft to touch another planet.
All public viewing events on UT campus telescopes are on hold for the remainder of 2020. We will update the website outreach.as.utexas.edu with a new schedule when we are able to resume viewing.
While you’re waiting for in-person telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on Twitter, Facebook and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
