November 2025 Stargazing Guide
Greetings Junior Scientists, Scientists and citizens of this great big weird, wild and wonderful world in which we live. As always I’m your humble science communicator, the great Orbax, coming to you from the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph and I’d like to welcome you to our November 2025 Star Gazing Guide.
Our journey into winter has well and truly begun, and as our planet continues it’s orbit around that nuclear reactor we know as the Sun, our nighttime hours just keep growing. Sunrise this month moves from 7:57 am on Nov 1 to 7:33 am on Nov 30th. While sunset creeps up from 6:12 pm on Nov 1 to 4:46 pm on the 30th thanks to Daylight Savings Time ending on Nov 2 at 2am. That means by month’s end we’ll have almost 15 hours of night skies to gaze into.
So what should we look for? This month we get a visit from the Royal family, try to spot some planets at sunrise and cast our eyes towards a Supermoon. All this and more when we just take some time… to look up.
It's time for our annual search for the royal family. Cassiopeia and Cepheus were the queen and king of Ethiopia in the ancient Greek myth of Perseus. When Cassiopeia bragged that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, Poseidon got his revenge with a giant monster attack.
These constellations were some of the original 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the second century. But Andromeda's place in the sky has been held by many cultures throughout history, including Chinese and Hindu astronomy, and even dates back to Babylonian times, where the constellation was named for a fertility goddess known as the Lady of the Heavens.
Regardless of history, these three constellations are easy to spot this time of year, just after sunset. Look to the northeast and look up. See those five stars high in the sky that kind of make up an asterism that looks like a sideways W. You found Cassiopeia, the seated queen. Now, just to the left or north, you'll be able to see maybe like an upside down house or a home plate in baseball. That's King Cepheus. One last one to find, and that's their daughter, Andromeda. Follow the line directly across the sky starting at Cepheus and through Cassiopeia just below the great square of Pegasus asterism is Andromeda. Now the constellation Andromeda also contains a deep sky object M31, the Andromeda galaxy. This is the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. And if it's very very clear, you should be able to see it as a hazy patch in the northernmost part of Andromeda. And on top of all that at almost 2.5 million light years away, it's the furthest object visible to the unaided eye. Good luck, junior scientists.
The usual suspects, Saturn and Jupiter, will be visible in the evening throughout November with Saturn already up at sunset and setting in the early morning hours, while Jupiter rises just a few hours after sunset and is most visible in the late evening and early morning. But now, let's look at some of our smaller planets. On the morning of the 18th, just before sunrise, you'll be able to spot Venus and the waning crescent Moon near each other in the morning sky. As a matter of fact, this will be your last chance to catch a morning glimpse of Venus and the Moon together this year. If you've got a set of binoculars and a clear view of the horizon just before sunrise on the 25th, you should see Venus and Mercury very close together. Venus should be visible to the unaided eye, but you'll need those binoculars to spot Mercury. And if you do happen to catch them, come back on the morning of the 26th at the same time, and you'll notice that the distance between them has doubled.
Our Full Moon this month takes place on November 5th and is the second of three consecutive Supermoons to end 2025. We talked about the Supermoon last month, but if you missed out, the Supermoon occurs when a Full Moon takes place when the Moon is closest to us in its orbit. 20,000 km closer to us than usual and 40,000 km closer to us than when it's furthest away in its orbit. The result, a Full Moon that appears 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when that moon is furthest away from Earth. As the animals prepare for winter,
the Mi'kmaw of Eastern Canada refer to this November Full Moon as the Wikewiku's, the Animal Fattening Moon and the Anishinaabe peoples refer to it as Baashkaakodin Giizis, the Freezing Moon.
Settlers refer to the November Full Moon as the Beaver Moon, named for the last rush of beavers completing their stores of food to take shelter in their lodge for the looming winter.
These are only a few of the astronomical wonders that await us this month. As some of you may know, November marks the fourth anniversary of our star gazing guides. For those of you who watch every month, thank you.
And for those of you new to our show, welcome in.
And in particular, I wanted to say hello to the junior scientists in the Brigadoon Public School Space Club.
Here's to clear skies and always taking some time to look up.
See you next month, junior scientists. And don't forget to have a science-tastic day.
Special thanks to the Royal City Science's own planetary geo-chemist, Dr. Glynis Perrett, for her help in preparing our star gazing guide and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.