Southern California’s Sky Offers Fireballs, Planets and Moon

Southern California’s November sky offers fireballs, a Jupiter–Mars conjunction, the Leonids and a supermoon. Clear views depend on an open horizon and distance from light pollution. The month’s first event, the Southern Taurid meteor shower, appeared early Thursday morning. No government order or corporate decision sets this schedule; observers’ practical limits are the sky, the weather and a clear view.

The Sky Sets the Schedule

The Northern Taurid shower should peak overnight on Nov. 11, said Tim Thompson, science director at Mt. Wilson Observatory. It can produce fireballs—meteors that look brighter than Venus in the night sky. At the peak, observers in places with little light pollution can typically expect 10 to 15 meteors per hour, Thompson said.

“It doesn't have lots and lots of meteors, but sometimes it gets some of the bigger and slower and more interesting ones,” he said. Some people call them “Halloween fireballs,” Thompson added. The display isn’t a flood of meteors. Its appeal is the chance to see one especially bright fireball.

Jupiter and Mars will appear close together in the eastern sky before dawn on Nov. 15 and 16, said Bruce Betts, chief scientist at the Pasadena-based Planetary Society. The viewing window runs from 4 to 6 a.m. Jupiter will look bright white; Mars will appear red-orange. Betts advised observers to find an open space where trees or mountains don’t block the eastern horizon.

Jupiter ranks as the night sky’s third-brightest natural object, after the moon and Venus. Planetary conjunctions happen periodically, but this Jupiter–Mars pairing comes only once every few years, Betts said.

Visibility Has Its Own Conditions

The Planetary Society website says the annual Leonids meteor shower should peak on Nov. 17 and 18. Thompson described a meteor shower as a stream of comet debris. The Taurids come from Comet 2P/Encke, first discovered in the 1700s; as Earth orbits the sun, it passes through a denser clump of the comet’s debris, bringing the shower each year.

Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle is associated with the Leonids. For either shower, recommended viewing spots include Joshua Tree National Park, the San Gabriel Mountains or a beach, where light pollution is limited. But marine fog can get in the way at the beach and reduce visibility. The advice is concrete. The conditions aren’t negotiable.

A Supermoon, With a Publicist

A supermoon will appear on Nov. 23 and 24. The term refers to a full moon that occurs when the moon is close to Earth in its oval-shaped orbit; supermoons look larger and brighter than regular full moons. Betts said they happen several times a year and are slightly overrated.

“Supermoon has much better PR than than planetary conjunctions,” he said. He added that observers would be “hard-pressed to tell any difference just looking with your eyes and not measuring it in some way that it's different than a normal moon.”

Scientists recommend viewing a supermoon near the horizon. Around sunset, look east as the moon rises; the “horizon illusion” makes it look larger beside familiar objects. The sun sets just after 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 23 and 24. This account describes no grassroots organizing, mutual-aid effort, election, legislative proposal or institutional helper. Scientists and the movement of the sky set the month’s celestial timetable, while visibility still depends on finding an open view.