Up to now, my skycalendar updates for 2011 have been posted on the website for the Huachuca Astronomy Club, and I really want to thank Ken Kirchner, the club's webmaster for posting those updates on the site. They have not really been in the normal 'blog' format, but hopefully now that will have been corrected with this subdomain that's related to my longtime planetary nebulae site, www.blackskies.org.  I hope you are comfortable with it, but if not, please let me know with your comments!

If you have NOT previously downloaded the 2011 SkyCalendar, Arizona version, you can do so by visiting this site: http://www.hacastronomy.com/calendar_2011.htm , and click on the '2011 Sky Calendar for Arizona'; a PDF file will then be available to download; unfortunately, there are only two months left for 2011 !  I am starting work on the 2012 version, and it should be complete and online by the middle of December, 2011. The PDF will be posted for download on both sites.

However, if you have previously downloaded the 2011 SkyCalendar, Arizona version, you will see that for November, 2011, the Highlite of the month is shown as   " Meteor Showers ". Cool ! Let's go into more details on those.  Well, the two major showers for the month are the Taurids and the Leonids, and actually, the Taurids are actually two separate branches, one 'north taurids' and one 'south taurids', and they do peak on different days in November. The South Taurids peak on Nov. 5, and the North Taurids peak on Nov. 12, and unfortunately, both of those days (or nights) this year have very strong and 'disturbing' Moon presence.  For the southern shower, there will be about an 80% waxing Moon, but setting at about 3 AM; for the northern shower, expect a 95% waning Moon, and that's not good.  The Taurids are associated with Comet Encke.  The average fall rate is about 7 per hour, and some can be seen as bright fireballs or even 'bolides'.

The Leonid Meteor Shower, due to occur on the evening/morning of Nov. 17/18, is another major shower this year having major Moon interference. This shower is associated with periodic comet Tempel-Tuttle.  During the expected viewing window for Arizona, there will be a 60% Moon in the sky.  In any event, I always recommend taking on the challenge of observing these showers when one can because there are almost 'always' surprizes to be seen when least expected.

Other updates for November include nothing new for Comet Larson (P/2004 H3) except that the magnitude is currently around 19.6.  For 2011, there have been 39 newly discovered comets given designations as of 10/26.

Although no occultations are included for the November events, there is several such events occuring near my observatory which is near the border with Mexico.  Within Arizona itself, there are more than just a few in which either the shadow path or 1-sigma path events will be occuring throughout the month.  One noteworthy one involves the asteroid (255) Oppavia and a 11.5 magnitude star in Aries; the occultation is predicted to take place just after midnight on November 6.  The shadow path includes the observatories at Kitt Peak.

Another event which is being discussed is the close passage of the small asteroid (about 1300 foot wide) designated 2005 YU55 on UT  (Universal Time) Nov. 9. Much more information and data can be found either on some NASA sites and on one of my favorite sites, www.spaceweather.com  . In fact, I have downloaded a future  'ephemeris' of its passage for my observatory from the services available from the Minor Planet Center site.  I hope to record at least part of its passage using my 14" Meade telescope and attached small video camera. I'll be glad to help others interested in obtaining an ephemeris for their location if contacted via the blog comments.  At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. 

Well, I had better start wrapping this up for November.  Thanks for viewing! and any comments are welcome. I promise to try and do better next month, and maybe even include an image or two.