Skynotes: November 2025

Melbourne Sun times 

*When the sun is at its highest, crossing the meridian or local longitude.  

Moon Phases

Moon Distance

Thursday 20th is lunar apogee (furthest from Earth) at 406,691 km. 

Thursday 6th is lunar perigee (nearest to Earth) at 356,833 km.

Planets

Planets

Mercury is planet closest to the Sun is visible in the evening in the west from 8:30pm until it sets in late twilight by 9:40pm.

Venus, our sunward close neighbour is too close to the Sun this month to be seen but will return to our night skies in late April.

Mars, the Red Planet is not visible this month as it is about to enter solar conjunction and move behind the Sun. Like Venus, it will reappear next April.

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system is bright and visible in the east from around 1am before fading in the north in dawn’s early light.

Saturn, this fainter but yellowish planet is visible this month in the evening from 8:40pm in the north-east after which it will move across the northern sky and before setting in the west by 3am. It will appear a little later each night as the month progresses.

Meteors

Two meteor showers occur this month, the Taurids and the Leonids, with up to 10-15 meteors per hour if viewed from a dark location.

The Taurids are bright, slow moving with colourful fireballs and occur in the first week of November in Taurus near the Pleiades star cluster and also near the red star Aldebaran.

The Leonids are high speed meteors that leave trains lasting several minutes. They appear in Leo which rises around 4am in the north-east from 13th - 20th but peak on the morning of the 18th. They arise from particles left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle as it orbits the Sun every 33 years, however the number of Leonid meteors has been declining over recent years with perhaps only 15 per hour.

Explore:
NASA Leonid News
EarthSky Leonid Shower
ESA About the Leonids

International Space Station

ISS orbits every 90 minutes at an average distance of 400 km appearing like a bright star moving slowly across the night sky. Here are some of the brightest passes expected this month over Melbourne and Central Victoria.

Morning

Thursday 6th 4:48am-4:53am North-West to South-East
Thursday 20th 4:00am-4:04am West to South-East

Evening

There are no bright evening passes this month. 

Heavens Above gives predictions for visible passes of space stations and major satellites, live sky views and 3D visualisations. Be sure to first enter your location under ‘Configuration’.

Stars & Constellations

In the north

The constellation of Pegasus, the winged horse is in the north this month with Andromeda low in the north-west. Aquila (the eagle) and its principal star Altair (Alpha Aquilae) is in the north-west.

Low in the north this and next month is the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31 or M31), the furthest object visible to the naked eye at 2.5 million light years. A clear view to the northern horizon and being away from city lights is recommended. This large spiral galaxy contains perhaps 1 trillion stars and occupies an area in the sky larger than the moon. In four billion years our Milky Way and Andromeda may ‘collide’ and pass through each other with several subsequent encounters ultimately resulting in a merger into one large elliptical galaxy. Over time their co-orbiting central supermassive black holes may join to become one with significant gravitational waves generated by the event.

However, the nearby Clouds of Magellan, the smaller Triangulum spiral galaxy (M33), and concentrations of dark matter may exert enough gravitational influence to prevent a collision and merger.

Meet the neighbours - Andromeda and Triangulum

The large Andromeda Galaxy M31 lies about 2 million light years away, comprises several spiral arms, a central bulge, perhaps 1 trillion stars, and numerous dark dust lanes. Credit: ESA / R. Gendler.

The small spiral Triangulum Galaxy M33, a neighbour to our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy. It is 30,000 light years across and contains perhaps 40 billion stars, spiral arms, numerous gas and dust regions, and many active areas of star formation (in red). It lies in the general direction of Andromeda but further away at about 3 billion light years. Credit: ESO

Our cosmic neighbourhood with these two spiral galaxies, plus perhaps 80 small faint galaxies, make up The Local Group which encompasses a volume of space of about 300 million cubic light years.

Explore:
NASA - Hubble Milky Way Collision
Science - Milky Way May Escape Collision
NASA Triangulum Galaxy M33

In the west

Spectacular Scorpius is now low in the west, soon to disappear from our evening skies. The red-giant star Antares (Alpha Scorpii) sits as the middle of three stars that form the arachnid’s body. Sagittarius, the centaur-archer, is above with its bow and arrow forming the well-known Teapot asterism. Higher up sits Capricorn, the sea goat, the hybrid fish-tailed goat.

In the east

Orion, the hunter, rises late in the evening this month, one foot being the blue-giant star Rigel (Beta Orionis) and a shoulder the red-giant star Betelguese (Alpha Orionis). The bright stars known as Orion’s Belt are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka (and form the base of the Saucepan asterism), while Orion’s scabbard (the saucepan’s handle) hanging from his belt contains in its centre the beautiful Orion nebula - a vast gas cloud 1300 light years away where stars formation is occurring. Note that Orion appears upside down in the Southern Hemisphere.

Also, upside down is Taurus, the bull, with the red-giant star Antares (Alpha Scorpii), rising in the north-east later in the night. In the south-east past Orion is Canis Major, greater dog, and its star Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star visible at night and also referred to as The Dog Star.

Approaching summer, the night sky from north-east to south-east will include a diverse range of features to enjoy.

In the south

Low in the south this month is Crux (Southern Cross) with the two Pointers, Alpha and Beta Centauri, to its right in the constellation Centaurus. In the south-east shines the second brightest star at night Canopus (Alpha Carinae), the principal star for the constellation Carina, the Keel.

The broad band of the Milky Way arcs from south-east along the western horizon to north-west. During the night as the Earth rotates to the east it will ‘wheel’ across the sky so that by 3am it will stretch from west to east.

On this day