In Aotearoa, in November, just after sunset, the Milky Way lies on the horizon, just like the ocean surrounding us from all directions. It is a very beautiful metaphor, but this means the Milky Way is also harder to see. We look at it through a layer of atmosphere and quite often through light pollution.
After Winter and Spring have spoiled us with all the fantastic objects in Scorpius and Sagittarius, it is hard to match that richness of deep sky objects that lay at the centre of our galaxy. This is simply because when we look towards the galactic centre, we see more stars, clusters and nebulae than anywhere else in the sky. If there are no planets in the night sky and you don’t have a good telescope handy, we are not even going to mention “the joy” of having the Moon spilling light pollution over your deep sky objects at night. The suitable deep sky objects in November can hide in plain sight. You have put some work into learning how to find them.
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The Magellanic Clouds are in an excellent position to observe the Sculptor Galaxy — almost at zenith and the Great Square of Pegasus, which are fun things to look at.
Three Royal Stars are in the sky in November, and here in Wellington, New Zealand, we are looking at a Māori asterism called Te Waka O Tama Rereti (or Tamarereti), which is the great canoe that placed the stars in the sky. Fomalhaut is our favourite star this month, the loneliest star in the sky – as it’s called and the Pleiades are back in the east just in time for Halloween.
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