A monthly treat for naked-eye celestial observers, telescopers, and astrophotographers.
Listen: https://soundcloud.com/astrophiz/astrophiz137-november-skyguide?si=d493172b50474ef19b3160652f4c19da
Four nice bright planets again this month. Once again in Eastern evening skies, magnificent Saturn and Jupiter grace our skies
Over in the West, Venus is spectacular. For Norther hemisphere observers, the Andromeda galaxy is looking magnificent under dark skies, while in the Southern Hemisphere the Magellanic Clouds are simply beautiful.
In Ian’s Tangent, he continues his comet theme to tell us about spectacular comets and in particular the size of comets and how some comets with a small nucleus can still be magnificent in our skies, depending on their proximity to the sun, how often the comet visits the inner solar system and its proximity to the earth’s orbit. Ian goes on to discuss various definitions and the challenge of whether an object in our skies could be a comet, asteroid or minor planet
Ian spells out some outbursts of notable comets like Lovejoy, McNaught, Hale-Bopp, C/2006 and how comet cores can vary from less than 2Km and for some, up to hundreds of kilometers in diameter with some specific examples of these. Enjoy!
Astrophiz: An Astronomy Podcast 