Sunday, November 15, 2015

Astrominute for Late November

Below is a text version of the new Gettysburg Astrominute, with some iillustrations. You can listen to the astrominute here and several times a week on WZBT, Gettysburg's address for the best new music!  


Here is your Gettysburg astrominute for late November 2015. The sun rises on Nov 15 at 6:53 AM and sets at 4:53 PM. On the 30th it rises at 7:10 and sets at 4:45. The moon phase will be growing during most of  the two week period – starting as a waxing crescent, reaching first quarter on the 19th and full on the 25th. The Leonid meteor shower will be peaking on Nov 17 to 18. Go out from midnight to dawn on either morning and you may see up to 10-15 meteors per hour. And while you’re up early, check out the bright planets in the east before sunrise. Jupiter is now the highest, with Mars, and then Venus below it. Venus is the brightest; next Jupiter and then Mars. Let’s not neglect the evening sky. The bright star Capella and the Pleaides (or 7 sisters) star cluster are both rising in the east around dark. Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull, follows about an hour later. Then the familiar constellation Orion the Hunter will be entirely up by 9 PM.  The astrominute is produced by Gettysburg College’s Hatter Planetarium and WZBT 91.1 FM. For a text version of the astrominute, with illustrations, visit the Gettysburg Skies blog.

5:30 AM on November 20

9:30 PM on Nov 20