Posted on: Friday October 31, 2025
November is a good month for planet watchers, as both Saturn and Jupiter are well-placed in the evening. Comet Lemmon is still visible, although it fades over the course of the month. Although several meteor showers are active or even peak in November, none of them produce a rate of meteors that most people would consider a “shower”.
The fall sky still gives us a view of the summer sky just after dark – as those stars slip into the west, the sunset occurs earlier each night, which gives us an extra bit of summer (at least astronomically). Pegasus and Andromeda are high in the south, and Cassiopeia takes her place near the zenith. Meanwhile, the winter constellations – Orion, Taurus, Gemini – are waiting in the east to usher in the cold weather.
And of course, in November we alter the clocks as part of the misnamed “daylight savings” scheme, which probably made sense when you literally blew out the lights at night, but makes no difference in the era of 24/7 office lights, refrigerators, and device charging.
Comets in November 2025
Comets are chunks of ice and dust a few kilometers across that originate from the edge of the solar system. If one moves through the inner solar system closer to the Sun, the ice melts and the dust streams away, blown buy the solar wind into a tail which can sometimes become bright enough to see from Earth. They can be visible for days or weeks as they zoom around the Sun and head back out into deep space.
At any given time there are five or ten comets in the sky that are visible in large telescopes. A comet that reaches binocular visibility is uncommon, maybe one every couple of years. A comet that becomes bright enough to be seen without optical aid is even more rare.
In November 2025, Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is still visible in binoculars (and maybe to the unaided eye, from a dark sky) in the early evening. Last month, this comet was a nice photographic target, but it looked just like a fuzzy blob to most visual observers (perhaps with a bit of a tail pointing upwards). If you want to see this comet before it fades too much, head out 30 minutes after sunset in the first week of November. The Moon gets brighter each night, though, and won’t leave the sky until November 7th, when the comet has already started to sink lower into the horizon haze. Use the chart below to see where the comet it relative to the bright star Arcturus and the fainter stars of the little-known constellation Ophiuchus.
Comet 2025 R2 SWAN has pretty much faded from view for most observers unless you have a telescope. It was nice over the last few weeks, but was quickly overshadowed by Comet Lemmon which turned out to be brighter and have a much longer and more visible tail. With a small telescope or large binoculars you can still spot Comet SWAN in the evening sky, slowly moving between the Great Square of Pegasus and the planet Saturn.
Meanwhile, Comet 3I/ATLAS is passing through perihelion on the far side of the Sun, and will re-emerge into the morning sky this month. Despite what you may have heard, various satellites have been watching this interstellar comet even as it passes behind and slightly above the Sun as seen from Earth, and it is still behaving exactly like a comet. However, one can apparently gain lots of social media clicks by suggesting that this object is not natural. There is absolutely no evidence that 3I/ATLAS is anything other than a comet, but that has never stopped spotlight hogs from making stuff up in the past.
Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is visible in binoculars in the evening sky after sunset. Get away from city lights and look for a fuzzy “star” in the location on the chart.
The Solar System for November 2025
Mercury passes just above the Sun on November 19th, making it invisible for observation for most of the month. By the end of the month it appears low in the southeast just before sunrise.
Venus rises in the east as morning twilight begins, but sinks lower each morning until finally disappearing into the glow of dawn. What is the last morning you can see it?
Mars is too close to the Sun to be visible this month.
Jupiter rises about 11 p.m. at the beginning of the month, and mid-evening by month’s end. It shines as the brightest “star” in the sky (other than Venus just before dawn) near the bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Even a small telescope will show Jupiter as a tiny planet with several tinier “stars” in a line near it – these are Jupiter’s largest moons. Up to four of them can be seen, depending on where they are in their orbit around the giant planet. Often these moons can be glimpsed in binoculars as well.
Saturn is in the southeast as darkness falls, the brightest “star” in that area of the sky. It sets about 4 a.m. at the beginning of the month and about 1 a.m. by month’s end. Telescope users should catch it when it is highest in the south to avoid the turbulent air near the horizon. Saturn’s rings are only tilted by a couple of degrees relative to our line of sight, which means they appear very thin and edge-on. The waxing gibbous moon is to the right of Saturn on November 1st, 2025 and to its left on November 2nd, 2025.
For those with large telescopes or astroimaging equipment, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, crosses in front of Saturn’s disk as seen from Earth on the evening of November 6th and 22nd.
Uranus is in the morning sky a few degrees below the famous Pleaides star cluster (also known as the Seven Sisters). It is too faint to easily see without binoculars, and even a telescope shows it as a faint dot that looks just like the other faint stars. A detailed star-charting app like Stellarium is required to track it down.
Neptune is in the same binocular field of view as Saturn for the entire month, about 4º to Saturn’s left (that’s a bit more than half of the field of view of typical binoculars). Neptune requires good binoculars or a small telescope to even spot, and a large telescope to make it out as anything more than a faint dot. Again, a detailed star chart like those produced by Stellarium is required to tell which tiny “dot” is Neptune.
Of the five known dwarf planets, only (1) Ceres is close enough to be seen in binoculars or a small telescope. Ceres is still visible this month after its opposition in early October, below and to the left of Saturn and Neptune, and remains bright enough to spot in binoculars and small telescopes all month. You should be able to spot it as a faint “star” that slowly changes its position each night. Use the attached chart, excerpted from the RASC Observer’s Handbook, to tell which “dot” is the dwarf planet.
Sky Calendar for November 2025
All times are given in the local time for Manitoba, which changes this month from Daylight “Savings” Time (CDT) to Standard Time (CST). However, most of these events are visible across Canada at the same local time without adjusting for time zones.
If there’s a little box to the left of the date, you can click on it to see a star map of that event! All images are created using Stellarium, the free planetarium software.
Saturday, November 1st, 2025 (evening sky): The Moon is to the right of Saturn this evening. Also, turn your clock one hour earlier before you go to bed on November 1st, as Daylight Savings Time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 2 this year.
Sunday, November 2nd, 2025 (evening sky): The Moon is to the left of Saturn this evening.
Tuesday, November 4th-Wednesday, November 5th, 2025 (morning sky): The annual South Taurid meteor shower peaks this morning, but it produces so few meteors that it is only monitored for scientific purposes. This year, the full Moon means we won’t see even the one or two meteors per hour predicted. Not worth getting out of bed for.
Wednesday, November 5th, 2025: Full Moon
Sunday, November 9th, 2025 (evening sky): The waning gibbous Moon is near Jupiter all night.
Tuesday, November 11th-Wednesday, November 12th, 2025 (morning sky):The annual North Taurid meteor shower peaks this morning, but like its southerly cousin it produces so few meteors that it is only monitored for scientific purposes. Not worth getting out of bed for. Last Quarter Moon occurs just before midnight on the 11th in our time zone.
Wednesday, November 12th, 2025 (not visible): The just-past-last-quarter Moon occults (passes in front of, or eclipses) the bright star Regulus in Leo early this evening, but this event is not visible from North America. Mentioned only because it will probably be all over social media.
Sunday, November 16th-Monday, 17th, 2025 (morning sky): The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks just before morning twilight on November 17th, with an expected rate of 5 to 15 meteors per hour. The Leonids are famous for producing occasional and quasi-periodic “storms” of hundreds or thousands of meteors per hour, but this is not expected this year.
Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 (morning sky): The very thin crescent Moon and Venus are beside each other, very low in the east just before dawn. You will need a very clear sky and maybe also binoculars to spot them against the bright twilight sky.
Thursday, November 20th, 2025: New Moon
Sunday, November 23th, 2025: Saturn’s rings are as close to edge-on as we get this year, with the rings tilted less than a quarter of a degree away from edge-on. After this, our view of the rings improves as the angle of our view increases year after year.
Friday, November 28th, 2025 (evening sky): The First Quarter Moon is to the right of Saturn this evening.
Saturday, November 29th, 2025 (evening sky): The waxing gibbous Moon is to the left of Saturn this evening.
Summer Meteor Showers
Outside of the regular events listed above, there are other things we see in the sky that can’t always be predicted in advance.
Aurora borealis, the northern lights, are becoming a more common sight again as the Sun goes through the maximum of its 11-year cycle of activity. Particles from the Sun interact with the Earth’s magnetic field and the high upper atmosphere to create glowing curtains of light around the north (and south) magnetic poles of the planet. Manitoba is well-positioned relative to the north magnetic pole to see these displays often, but they still can’t be forecast very far in advance. A site like Space Weather can provide updates on solar activity and aurora forecasts for the next 48 hours. The best way to see the aurora is to spend a lot of time out under the stars, so that you are there when they occur.
Random meteors (also known as falling or shooting stars) occur every clear night at the rate of about 5-10 per hour. Most people don’t see them because of light pollution from cities, or because they don’t watch the sky uninterrupted for an hour straight. They happen so quickly that a single glance down at your phone or exposure to light can make you miss one.
Satellites are becoming extremely common sights in the hours after sunset and before dawn. Appearing as a moving star that takes a few minutes to cross the sky, they appear seemingly out of nowhere. These range from the International Space Station and Chinese space station Tianhe, which have people living on them full-time, to remote sensing and spy satellites, to burnt-out rocket parts and dead satellites. These can be predicted in advance (or identified after the fact) using a site like Heavens Above by selecting your location.
