November 23
The Still Point Returns
Sun Position
The Sun is in Sagittarius near -20° declination. Northern Hemisphere is in its deep-autumn configuration of short days and long, cold nights. Southern Hemisphere summer light is generous.
Sky Highlight
Late November is ideal for observing the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its satellite galaxies M32 and M110. M31 transits near early evening and remains well-placed for the whole night from northern mid-latitudes. The paired galaxies M32 and M110 are both visible in the same binocular field, a small elliptical and a diffuse dwarf elliptical flanking the larger spiral.
Deep Sky Object
M32, elliptical dwarf satellite of M31, about 2.5 million light-years away. Compact and bright for its class, it appears as a small, sharply concentrated glow at the edge of M31's disk. It is thought to have been a normal spiral galaxy that lost most of its outer mass to tidal stripping from the Andromeda Galaxy over billions of years. Visible from both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Polaris (α Ursae Minoris) is a yellow-white supergiant 433 light-years away, spectral class F7Ib. As a Cepheid variable, it pulsates over a 3.97-day period, though the amplitude has decreased measurably over the past century. At any latitude north of the equator it is permanently above the horizon; from the equator it sits exactly on the horizon, one degree north of it, technically.
Around This Date
- November 23, 1876Lewis Swift discovered the galaxy NGC 1169 in Perseus; while obscure itself, the discovery was part of a systematic cataloging of nebulae that led to the NGC.
- November 27, 1971The Soviet Mars 2 spacecraft became the first human-made object to reach Mars's surface, though the lander crashed on impact.
Polaris does not move because it can't, it simply sits close enough to the pole that Earth's rotation barely shifts its position in the sky.