2018 Week 45: (November 4-November 10)

This week in the sky there will be a meteor shower and some tricks with the planet Mercury.  The chart below highlights everything that is going on!

Date	Event
November 4	Daylight Saving Time Ends
November 5	Southern Taurid Meteors Peak
November 6	Mercury Greatest Elongation East
November 7	New Moon
November 8	Mercury 1.8°N of Antares

As we all know Daylight Saving Time ends at 2am on Sunday, November 4.  We push the clocks back an hour and hopefully enjoy an extra hour in bed.

The Southern Taurid Meteors will peak during the evening of November 5.  The constellation Taurus will be in the eastern sky and certainly visible by 9pm.  The Pleiades Star Cluster is a famous sight in the great bull constellation.  If you look in the general direction of the Pleiades you may catch a meteor.  It is a particularly sparse shower and may only peak at 2-3 per hour from suburban conditions.  You may be able to catch a few more in darker skies.  The image below provides the location of the shower radiant (M45 - Pleiades).

Southern Taurid Radiant

Mercury is playful this week.  It will reach its greatest elongation East on Thursday evening.  This means it is as far East of the Sun as it gets this orbit.  However, the geometry for Northern Hemisphere observers is not that great.  If you are out for a walk with a clear view of the western horizon just after sunset you may have a shot at seeing this diminutive planet.  A map to its location can be found below.

Mercury

It is tucked in nice and close to Jupiter and the bright red star Antares.  As you can see it also sets right after the Sun.  The bright twilight may wash out both the largest and smallest planet of our Solar System.  After the Sun goes down try seeking them out with binoculars.  Please, wait for the Sun to go down before you try!

Map to Mercury - Thursday, November 8, 2018

There are three rocket launches scheduled at the time of writing.  Launch dates and times can change quickly without notice.  The chart below indicates when they will occur.  As always, you can catch live launches from the following webpage:

https://spaceflightnow.com/

Date	Event
November 6	Soyuz - MetOp C (17:47)
November 7	Pegasus XL - ICON (01:00)
November 10	Electron - It's Business Time (20:00)

A Soyuz rocket will launch from South America and carry a polar-orbiting weather satellite for the ESA.  The next day (or 6 hours later) a Pegasus XL rocket will be taking the delayed ionosphere monitoring satellite into orbit.  Finally on the 10th of November a Electron rocket will be launching from New Zealand.  This launch has been scrubbed since late June.

There are no public events occurring this week but the next RAO open house will be happening the following weekend.  Stay tuned for more information soon!  If you are reading this and haven't subscribed to our Facebook Page, now is the time.  We have an action packed Winter with many free events!  Join us below!

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