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By Deane Morrison

In November the bright winter constellations that have been lighting up the morning sky begin climbing over the eastern horizon during the evening hours.

By mid-month all will be up by 1 a.m. Traveling with these stars are brilliant Jupiter, shining above the hourglass form of Orion, the hunter; and rapidly brightening Mars, bringing up the rear below the Gemini twins.

The assembly enters an evening sky marked by relatively dim fall constellations like Capricornus, the sea goat; Pisces, the fishes; and Aquarius, the water bearer. Whether you’re familiar with these constellations or not, you’ll need a dark, moonless sky to see them.

Saturn can help orient you. The ringed planet is somewhat low in the southeast to south at nightfall. Now in Aquarius, Saturn sits in the cascade of water falling from the Water Jar, a small, roughly Y-shaped group of four stars above the planet.

Aquarius is usually taken to represent Ganymede, a youth fancied by Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, who took him to Mount Olympus to serve as cupbearer to the gods. Also a moon of Jupiter, Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and the only moon known to have its own magnetic field, which generates auroras in its polar regions.

Immediately east of the Water Jar is a ring of stars called the Circlet of Pisces. It’s a pretty sight, but you may need binoculars to find it. Above the Circlet are the four stars of the Great Square of Pegasus, which represents the torso of the mythological winged horse.

Rising the evening of the 15th, November’s full moon will be the year’s last big, bright supermoon. But the night of the 17th to 18th, the still bright waning moon will play spoiler during the peak of the annual Leonid meteor shower.

The University of Minnesota offers public viewings of the night sky at its Duluth and Twin Cities campuses. For more information, see:

• Duluth, Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium: www.d.umn.edu/planet

• Twin Cities, Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics: www.astro.umn.edu/outreach/pubnight

• Check out astronomy programs, free telescope events, and planetarium shows at the

• University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum: www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/astronomy

• Find U of M astronomers and links to the world of astronomy at: http://www.astro.umn.edu.