November 15
The Drifting Boat
Sun Position
The Sun is in Scorpius near -21° declination. From northern mid-latitudes, the sun sets before 5 p.m. and rises after 7 a.m. Southern Hemisphere summer warmth is building.
Sky Highlight
The Leonid meteor shower continues to build. The shower's radiant in Leo rises in the east around midnight from northern latitudes, so the hours from midnight to dawn are the most productive window. In exceptional years, the Leonids become a storm of thousands per hour; typical years yield a few dozen fast, bright meteors.
Deep Sky Object
M1, the Crab Nebula, supernova remnant in Taurus, roughly 6,500 light-years away. This is the expanding debris cloud from a supernova observed on Earth in 1054. At its center is a pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times per second, that powers the nebula's continued luminosity. A classic target, well-placed in November evenings from either hemisphere.
Featured Star
Zaurak (γ Eridani) is a red giant 203 light-years away, spectral class M0.5IIIb, slightly variable on a period of several hundred days, ruddy and cool compared to the white and blue stars surrounding it in November's sky. Arabic sailors named it the small boat navigating the celestial river.
Around This Date
- November 15, 1738William Herschel was born; he would later discover Uranus, infrared radiation, and hundreds of nebulae and star clusters still in use in astronomical catalogs.
- November 19, 1969Apollo 12 astronauts Conrad and Bean landed in the Ocean of Storms, becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
Zaurak pulsing slowly in the river Eridanus, a variable so gradual that a single lifetime of watching would barely catch one full cycle.