The faint interstellar comet moves higher before dawn. Comet 3I/ATLAS is gaining altitude in the pre-dawn sky. As of November 20th it was still 10th magnitude (the average of many visual estimates), a little brighter than expected! You’ll need a telescope capable of detecting a small, roundish faint fuzzy about 30° up in the east-southeast shortly before the first sign of dawn. That probably means a 6-inch scope or larger (visually), depending on your sky. At least there’s no Moon. Plan to be all set up two hours before sunrise.
See Bob King’s All Eyes on Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS. The deep (13th magnitude) finder chart with that article continues through the morning of November 25th as the comet approaches Eta Virginis. The much wider-field chart above it, with stars only to 5th magnitude, runs well into December. But to use that one you’ll need to print it out large and use a millimeter ruler to interpolate the comet’s very precise position for the date and time you plan to look for it. (The comet symbols there are plotted for 12:00 UT on the dates given.) Better to follow King’s advice and use a sky-charting program that downloads fresh orbital elements to plot the positions of new comets.
Also see King’s more recent article Comet K1/ATLAS Crumbles, Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Delights.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21
■ By about 8 p.m. Orion is clearing the eastern horizon, depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone.
Orion’s tilt while rising depends on your latitude. If you live north of 33° N (Los Angeles, Atlanta, the Nile delta, Shanghai), Betelgeuse will be higher than Rigel. If you’re south of 33°, Rigel will be the higher of the two just after they rise; Orion will be kicking his foot higher than his bright shoulder.
As the night goes on, however, Betelgeuse always gain the upper position as seen from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
■ Vega is the brightest star high in the west these evenings. Its little constellation Lyra extends to its left, pointing as always toward Altair, currently the brightest star in the southwest.
Three of Lyra’s stars near Vega are interesting doubles. Barely above Vega is 4th-magnitude Epsilon Lyrae, the Double-Double. Epsilon forms one corner of a roughly equilateral triangle with Vega and Zeta Lyrae. The triangle is less than 2° on a side, hardly the width of your thumb at arm’s length.
T Lyrae is a carbon star: a red giant that’s unusually deep orange-red due to its light coming through a red filter: C2 vapor in its upper atmosphere. T Lyrae slowly varies from magnitude 7.5 to 9.2, so most of the time you’ll need a telescope.
The famous Ring Nebula is famous partly because it’s in a conveniently located spot: between Gamma and Beta Lyrae. But a better guide to finding it is that it’s almost exactly halfway to Beta from 5th-magnitude β648, easily spotted in a finderscope just off Gamma. Star field image from Starry Night Pro 8.
Binoculars easily resolve Epsilon. And a 4-inch telescope at 100× or more should, during good seeing, resolve each of Epsilon’s wide components into a tight pair.
Zeta is also a double star for binoculars. It’s much closer and tougher, but is plainly resolved in a telescope.
And Delta Lyrae, upper left of Zeta by a similar distance, is a much wider and easier binocular pair. Its stars are orange and blue. It’s set in a sparse grouping of a few fainter stars known as Stephenson 1.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22
■ We’re two thirds of the way through fall, so Capella shines in the northeast as soon as the stars come out. Almost three fists left of it is the Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. Below the Pleiades is Aldebaran. Farther below Aldebaran, watch for Orion to rise.
And then keep watch on the horizon way below Capella, or as low as you can see in that direction, for Jupiter to ascend into view.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23
■ The bowl of the Little Dipper slowly swings down in the evening at this time of year, left or lower left of Polaris, which holds steady due north. Most of the Little Dipper is dim. The exceptions are Polaris (its handle-end) and Kochab (the lip of its bowl). Both are 2nd magnitude. They’re 16° apart, about a fist and a half.
Around 10 or 11 p.m., depending on how far east or west you are in your time zone, Kochab passes exactly below Polaris.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24
■ Now that the Pleiades and (below them) Aldebaran are shining due east after dark, can Orion be far behind? Orion’s entire iconic figure, formed by its brightest seven stars, takes about an hour and a quarter to clear the eastern horizon. By 9 p.m. it’s well up in the east-southeast, in fine pre-winter view.
■ Algol should be at its minimum light, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on 11:55 p.m. EST. Algol takes several additional hours to fade and to rebrighten.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25
■ The thick crescent Moon, 5½ days old, shines in dim Capricornus in the south-southwest at nightfall. Get your telescope on it. This evening for North America, the sunrise terminator is crossing Mare Tranquillitatis. It’s sunrise at the Apollo 11 site! The Sun has already just risen on the Theophilus-Cyrillus-Catharina trio of craters. The latter two seem to be connected by a wide, dark trench of shadow when the barely-risen Sun is at just the right angle. This month, westernmost Europe has the best evening timing for this phenomenon.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26
■ The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Perseus Double Cluster are both cataloged as 4th magnitude, and in a fairly good sky you can see each with the unaided eye. Binoculars make them easier. They’re only 22° apart, very high toward the east early these evenings — to the right of Cassiopeia and closer below Cassiopeia, respectively, as shown below.
But they look rather different, the more so the darker your sky. See for yourself. Binoculars help.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27
■ First-quarter Moon (exact at 1:59 a.m. EST tonight). The Moon is in central Aquarius, with Saturn about two fists to its upper left. Look two fists below or lower left of the Moon for Fomalhaut, Saturn’s equal in brightness. About one fist lower right of the Moon is 3rd-magnitude Delta Capricorni.
In a telescope, the Moon’s sunrise terminator is starting to unveil Mare Imbrium dramatically in the north; it’s edged by the tall Alps and Apennine mountain ranges. South of center, the terminator has just pulled the cover of night off the great crater-chain trio of flat-floored Ptolemaeus, more rugged Alphonsus, and smaller, central-peaked Arzachel.
■ Algol should be at minimum brightness for about two hours centered on 8:44 p.m. EST.
■ Jupiter’s Great Red Spot should cross the planet’s central meridian around 9:56 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Then the tiny black shadow of Jupiter’s inner moon Io crosses the planet’s face from 10:46 p.m. to 12:41 a.m. EST, followed by Io itself from 11:22 p.m. to 1:38 a.m. EST. For Pacific time, subtract three hours.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28
■ Does the Sun already seem to be setting about as early as it ever will? You’re right! We’re still three weeks from the winter solstice — but the Sun actually sets its earliest around December 7th if you’re near latitude 40° north, and already the Sun sets within only about 2 minutes of that time.
A surprising result of this: The Sun actually sets a trace earlier Thanksgiving week than on Christmas — even though Christmas is nearly at solstice time!
But in celestial mechanics, every seeming abnormality is balanced out by an equal abnormality somewhere else. The offset of the earliest sunset from the solstice date is balanced out by the opposite happening at sunrise: The Sun doesn’t come up its latest until January 4th. These offsets arise from the tilt of Earth’s axis and the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29
■ The waxing gibbous Moon, almost two days past first quarter, shines about 4° or 5° upper left of Saturn after dusk. Later in the evening it looms straight over Saturn. Now the sunrise terminator has passed Plato in the north, Copernicus nearer the center, and rayed Tycho in the south.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30
■ Vega still shines brightly well up in the west-northwest after dark. The brightest star above it is Deneb, the head of the big Northern Cross formed by the brightest stars of Cygnus. At nightfall the shaft of the cross extends lower left from Deneb, by about two fists. By about 11 p.m. it stands more or less upright on the northwest horizon.
This Week’s Planet Roundup
Mercury (about magnitude 0) emerges very low during dawn this week. On the morning of the 24th, look for it just 1½° left or lower left of overwhelmingly brighter Venus. Good luck, and bring binoculars. Each day Mercury appears higher: 1½° above Venus on the 25th, and 10° above it by December 1st.
Venus (magnitude –3.9) rises in the east-southeast as dawn grows bright, about 50 to 40 minutes before sunrise; a little later every day.
Mars is hidden behind the glare of the Sun. I will remain so until next May!
Jupiter (magnitude –2.5, in eastern Gemini) rises in the east-northeast around 8 p.m. It dominates the eastern sky, then the high southeast, as the night advances. Castor and Pollux shine upper left of it in the evening, then above it in the hours before dawn. This group of three is highest in the south around 3 a.m. — with Procyon below it and Orion much farther to its lower right.
Saturn (magnitude +1.1, at the Aquarius-Pisces border) is having exciting times. It’s the brightest dot high in the south in early evening, below the Great Square of Pegasus.
This is the week Saturn’s rings are the closest they will get to edge-on. The rings’ inclination to our line of sight reaches a minimum of 0.37° on November 23rd, then will very slowly start increasing again without Earth ever quite passing through their plane. The inclination stays very close to that value for many days before and after.
In my 12.5-inch reflector on the evening of November 20th, at 190x and 240x, the thread-thin ring system was actually not hard to see at all. It looked like a long, faint brown needle piercing the distinctly oblate globe, in perfect alignment with its thin black shadow on the globe. Which was actually more difficult.
Titan was perfectly aligned with the needle far off one end. Dione and Rhea, combined in an inseparable conjunction, were closer off the other end. The whole formed a delicate perfection. This aspect of Saturn is a sight to remember and one we won’t see again for about another 15 years.
For more goings-on at Saturn during this rare time, go to Bob King’s See Saturn’s Rings at Their Thinnest. He suggests using the rings’ near-absence to try to add inner Mimas to your log of Saturnian moons. Or at least Enceladus, which I repeatedly glimpsed in a 6-inch reflector during a previous thin-rings season. King includes a timetable of Mimas’s greatest elongations that happen when Saturn is high in the dark for North America. You can find Enceladus’s greatest elongations by playing with Sky & Telescope‘s interactive Saturn’s Moons calculator: run the hours forward and backward to see when Enceladus (“E”) is farthest out at a time when Saturn will be high in darkness for you.
In your scope, can you detect that the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) is now a bit darker than the SEB, as seen in both these images? I couldn’t in my 12.5-inch.
Uranus (magnitude 5.6, in Taurus 4° south of the Pleiades) is well up by 8 p.m. At high power in a telescope it’s a tiny but definitely non-stellar dot, 3.8 arcseconds wide. You’ll need a detailed finder chart to identify it among similar-looking faint stars; turn to the November Sky & Telescope, page 49.
Neptune is a telescopic “star” of magnitude 7.8, a dim speck just 2.3 arcseconds wide 4° northeast of show-stealing Saturn. For Neptune you’ll need an even more detailed finder chart.
All descriptions that relate to your horizon — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world’s mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions and graphics that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is Universal Time minus 5 hours. UT is also known as UTC, GMT, or Z time.
Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations. They’re the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.
This is an outdoor nature hobby. For a more detailed constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy.
For the attitude every amateur astronomer needs, read Jennifer Willis’s Modest Expectations Give Rise to Delight.
Once you get a telescope, to put it to good use you’ll want a much more detailed, large-scale sky atlas (set of charts). The basic standard is the Pocket Sky Atlas, in either the original or Jumbo Edition. Both show all 30,000 stars to magnitude 7.6, and 1,500 deep-sky targets — star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies — to search out among them.
Next up is the larger and deeper Sky Atlas 2000.0, plotting stars to magnitude 8.5; nearly three times as many, as well as many more deep-sky objects. It’s currently out of print, but maybe you can find one used.
The next up, once you know your way around well, are the even larger Interstellarum Deep-Sky Atlas (with 201,000+ stars to magnitude 9.5 and 14,000 deep-sky objects selected to be detectable by eye in very large amateur telescopes), and Uranometria 2000.0 (332,000 stars to mag 9.75, and 10,300 deep-sky objects).
And read How to Use a Star Chart with a Telescope. It applies just as much to charts on your phone or tablet (which many observers find more versatile) as to charts on paper.
You’ll also want a good deep-sky guidebook. A beloved old classic is the three-volume Burnham’s Celestial Handbook. It was my bedside reading for years. An impressive more modern one is the big Night Sky Observer’s Guide set (2+ volumes) by Kepple and Sanner. The pinnacle for total astro-geeks is the new Annals of the Deep Sky series, currently at 11 volumes as it works its way forward through the constellations alphabetically. So far it’s up to H.
Can computerized telescopes replace charts? Well, I used to say this:
“Not for beginners, I don’t think, unless you prefer spending your time getting finicky technology to work rather than learning how to explore through the sky yourself. As Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, ‘A full appreciation of the universe cannot come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understanding how the sky works. This knowledge comes only by spending time under the stars with star maps in hand and a curious mind.’ Without these, ‘the sky never becomes a friendly place.’ “
Well, things change. The technology has continued to improve and become more user-friendly — particularly with software that can now, amazingly, recognize any telescopic star field to determine exactly where the telescope is pointed — finally bypassing all imperfections in the mount, tripod, gears, bearings and other mechanics, or in the user’s skill in setting up.
The latest revolution is the rise of small, imaging-only “smartscopes.” These take advantage of not only today’s pointing technology, but also the vastly better capabilities of imaging chips and processing compared to the human retina and visual cortex. The most sophisticated image stacking and processing can come built in. The result is reasonably capable deep-sky imagers in shockingly small, low-priced units. The image is viewable on your phone or computer as it builds up in real time. Small smartscopes can enable contributions to serious citizen-science projects.
These are changing the hobby at the entry level. For more on this revolution see Richard Wright’s “The Rise of the Smart Telescopes” in the November 2025 Sky & Telescope. And read the magazine’s review of this especially tiny one.
If you get a larger, more conventional computerized scope that allows direct visual use, do make sure that its drives can be disengaged so you can swing it around and point it readily by hand when you want to, rather than only slowly by the electric motors (which eat batteries).
Audio sky tour. Out under the evening sky with your
earbuds in place, listen to Kelly Beatty’s monthly
podcast tour of the naked-eye heavens above. It’s free.
“The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking, it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.”
— Carl Sagan, 1996
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
— John Adams, 1770
