Overview
- Mercury and Mars share the western twilight in early November and reach a close conjunction on November 12 before both slip into solar glare mid‑month.
- Mercury shows a slim crescent and is best around November 12 at about 9 arcseconds and 22% illumination ahead of its November 20 inferior conjunction.
- Jupiter rises late in Gemini at roughly magnitude −2.4, begins apparent retrograde motion on November 11, and spans about 42 arcseconds for detailed telescopic views.
- Saturn stands high toward the north in the evening with a 19‑arcsecond disk and a 42‑arcsecond ring system tilted only about 0.4°, shining near magnitude 0.8.
- Venus stays essentially unobservable from mid‑southern latitudes, while the 9th‑magnitude Seyfert galaxy M77 in Cetus offers a timely deep‑sky target that has recently crossed the celestial equator due to precession.