November 4
The Still Point
Sun Position
The Sun is in Scorpius at roughly -16° declination. Northern Hemisphere evenings arrive earlier each day; Southern Hemisphere skies are brightening toward summer.
Sky Highlight
The South Taurid shower is still active. This is also a good night to use Polaris as a precise north-finding tool: face the star and you are facing within one degree of true geographic north. Observers in the Southern Hemisphere have no equivalent pole star, the south celestial pole sits in an unremarkable patch of Octans.
Deep Sky Object
NGC 891, edge-on spiral galaxy in Andromeda, about 30 million light-years away. The dust lane bisecting its disk is one of the most striking in any galaxy visible to amateur telescopes, making it a textbook example of what our own Milky Way might look like from the side. Best from northern latitudes; low but possible from the Southern Hemisphere.
Featured Star
Polaris (α Ursae Minoris) is a yellow-white supergiant 433 light-years away, spectral class F7Ib, and also a Cepheid variable, pulsating gently over a four-day cycle. It happens to sit within one degree of the north celestial pole right now, a coincidence of orbital precession that won't last: in roughly 12,000 years Vega will hold that position instead.
Around This Date
- November 4, 1957The U.S. Naval Observatory confirmed Sputnik 2's orbital parameters, tracking Laika's signals as the spacecraft completed its early orbits.
- November 6, 1572Tycho Brahe observed the new star in Cassiopeia now known as Tycho's Supernova, helping overturn the Aristotelian idea that the heavens were unchanging.
Polaris is not fixed. It is just our current close neighbor to the pole, slowly drifting through its small circle like everything else.