Don’t Miss: Partial Lunar Eclipse, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter – November 2021 Skywatching Tips From NASA

A partial lunar eclipse is on the way, taking place overnight on November 18th and 19th, when the Moon slips into Earth’s shadow for a couple of hours. Weather permitting, the eclipse will be visible from any location where the Moon appears above the horizon during the eclipse. Depending on your time zone, it’ll occur earlier or later in the evening for you.

This image depicts the moon’s path with respect to Earth’s umbral shadow (in red) and penumbral shadow (in gray). The labels P4, U4, Greatest, P1 and U1 relate to eclipse timings and are explained at EclipseWise.com. The eclipse is almost total, but a tiny portion of the moon’s face will remain outside the dark umbral shadow at mid-eclipse. Image via Fred Espenak. Find timing for your location at timeanddate.com.

All month long, if you’re up late and cast your gaze toward the east, you’ll notice some familiar companions have begun rising late in the night. The familiar stars of Northern winter skies are returning, rising late at night and sitting high in the south by dawn.

You’ll find the Pleiades star cluster leading the constellations Taurus the bull and the hunter Orion, followed by the brightest star in the sky, Sirius – all of them back to keep us company on the long winter nights here in the Northern Hemisphere. (And for those in the Southern Hemisphere, they’re keeping you company on shorter nights as spring gives way to summer there.

A fun note about the Pleiades this month is that several of the 8 asteroids to be visited by NASA’s Lucy mission are located in that part of the sky.

The Lucy spacecraft launches from Space Launch Complex 41, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingall