Poster’s Note: The text for this month’s installment from Dee Sharples, “The Sky In November 2025,” is provided below. Those wishing to listen to the article can click on the audio link below.
November brings an end to Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, the 2nd. Turn your clocks back one hour to Standard Time. The positive news is you’ll get an extra hour of sleep that morning and the evening sky will now darken an hour sooner giving you the opportunity to observe earlier.
At the beginning of November, the planet Mercury starts the month shining at a bright magnitude -0.1, low in the southwestern sky after sunset. Soon it will no longer be visible in the evening sky.
Venus is a brilliant magnitude -3.8 rising in the east about an hour before sunrise. You’ll need an observing site free of obstacles to spot this dazzling planet as it lies very close to the horizon. Near the end of the month, Mercury joins Venus, appearing in the eastern sky before sunrise at a dim magnitude 0.8. Brilliant Venus will point the way with Mercury just above and to the left a half hour before sunrise. Binoculars will help you spot Mercury.
The giant planet Jupiter rises in the east around 11:00 p.m. shining at a bright magnitude -2.3. By the middle of November, it’s 60° high in the southern sky. (Hold your fist out at arm’s length. Each fist-width measures 10°.) Start at the horizon and count up six fist-widths to reach brilliant Jupiter.
Saturn is high in the southeast at magnitude 0.8 after sunset. Through a telescope its rings appear thin and almost edge-on from our vantage point on Earth but will slowly begin to increase their tilt.
The farthest planet Neptune at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles from the Sun can be spotted 4° below and to the left of Saturn, but you’ll need binoculars to see it. It will appear as a tiny disk, not starlike, with a bluish hue.
The Leonid meteor shower will peak during the night of Monday, November 17th through Tuesday the 18th until the sun begins to brighten the sky. However, it will be active from November 6 to 30 so you may be able to spot a meteor almost any night in November. The radiant, or area of the sky from which the meteors will appear to originate, is in the constellation Leo the Lion which will be high in the southeast two hours before the sun rises. The meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through a stream of debris left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle as it travels through our solar system every 33 years. The dust and tiny particles burn up in our atmosphere creating streaks of light with long trails.
Find an observing site away from light pollution, dress warm, bring a blanket or folding chair, and make yourself comfortable. At the peak, you should be able to spot 10 meteors an hour shooting across the sky. Although the meteors will appear to have come from the radiant in Leo, they can appear in any direction in the sky.
Comet Lemmon is visiting our solar system and can be seen in binoculars or a telescope close to the southwestern horizon as the sky darkens after sunset. Begin looking for it on November 9th when light from the Moon won’t interfere. Although it will be at only magnitude 8.0, it will get dimmer as it travels out of our solar system.
