Titan transits Saturn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nAndromeda the Princess is high in the evening sky after dark. Best known for the eponymous Andromeda Galaxy (M31), there is so much more to see in this royal domain, including the lovely edge-on spiral we\u2019re targeting tonight: the Silver Sliver Galaxy (NGC 891).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wait until after moonset, then pull out your telescope and point east. Look for Almach (Gamma [\u03b3] Andromedae), shining at magnitude 2.1. The Silver Sliver is just 3.5\u00b0 east of this star. Floating in a rich field of Milky Way Stars, NGC 891 glows at magnitude 9.9. That puts it within the range of small telescopes, though larger apertures will, as ever, reveal more detail. (For example, scopes 10 inches or larger should show the dark dust lane neatly bisecting the galaxy\u2019s plane.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
True to its name, the Silver Sliver is much longer than it is wide, as we\u2019re viewing its spiral disk edge-on. Inclined just 1.4\u00b0 to our line of sight, it appears some 13\u2019 long and only 3\u2019 wide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunrise:<\/strong>\u00a06:55 A.M.
Sunset:<\/strong>\u00a04:38 P.M.
Moonrise:<\/strong>\u00a010:13 A.M.
Moonset:<\/strong>\u00a07:03 P.M.
Moon Phase:<\/strong>\u00a0Waxing crescent (13%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\nVenus and Mercury stand separated by 1.5\u00b0 in the early-morning sky of November 24, visible in the east about half an hour before the Sun rises. The catch is that while bright magnitude \u20133.9 Venus is readily spotted with the naked eye, Mercury is only magnitude 2.9 and will need binoculars to spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\t\tIf you want to catch Mercury and Venus in the predawn sky, pull out binoculars to find the former, which is roughly magnitude 3. You might also be able to spot Libra\u2019s alpha and beta stars above them. Credit: Stellarium<\/p>\n
Mercury is located just to the lower left of Venus. Above them are Alpha (\u03b1) and Beta (\u03b2) Librae, fading quickly in the growing twilight. The two planets will rise as sunrise approaches, but the sky will also brighten accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you have a telescope, you can view the planets\u2019 disks as well. Mercury shows off a 9\u201d-wide disk, of which only a thin crescent is illuminated, just 7 percent lit. Venus\u2019 disk is only a little larger \u2014 10\u201d \u2014 but shows the opposite phase, a gibbous that is nearly fully illuminated at 98 percent lit.<\/p>\n
Make sure to put away any optics at least several minutes before sunrise from your location.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The Silver Sliver Galaxy is a lovely sight in Andromeda the Princess. View this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,75779],"class_list":{"0":"post-195782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-observing","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sky-tonight"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115598410950183976","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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