Special to CosmicTribune.com, November 2, 2025

Excerpts from weekly Astronomy.com report.

Sunday, November 2
Daylight saving time ends today at 2 A.M.

The Moon passes 4° north of Saturn at 6 A.M. EST, then passes 3° north of Neptune at noon EST. This evening after sunset, you’ll find the waxing Moon located to the upper left of naked-eye Saturn in the southeastern sky. Neptune is between them, though the magnitude 7.7 planet cannot be seen without optical aid. However, it may be difficult to see the faint, distant ice giant with the bright Moon nearby.

If you want to give it a try, center your telescope on Saturn, then scan some 4.2° northeast. Neptune tonight stands about 22’ north of a magnitude 7.5 field star; the two will likely appear about the same brightness. Neptune is the northernmost object of the pair; its 2”-wide disk may look gray or blue in color, and appear somewhat “flatter” than the pinprick star.

Even if you can’t catch Neptune, spend some time with Saturn and its razor-thin rings, now tilted by less than a degree.

Sunrise: 6:30 A.M.
Sunset: 4:56 P.M.
Moonrise: 3:12 P.M.
Moonset: 2:53 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (92%)

Monday, November 3
Let’s catch up with Venus in the morning sky; Earth’s sister planet sits just to the left of Spica, Virgo’s brightest star, as the Maiden rises before dawn this morning.

About an hour before sunrise, the two lights are just over 3° high in the east. Venus is brightest, its magnitude –3.9 glow far outshining magnitude 1.0 Spica. The two will rise higher together as dawn approaches — how long can you follow Spica into the twilight?

As the sky is brightening (but well before sunrise), take a look at Venus through a telescope. Seeing the bright planet against a bright background helps reduce contrast and give a clearer view of its disk, which stretches 10” and is 96 percent lit. You aren’t seeing the surface of Venus through your scope — rather, you’re viewing sunlight reflecting off the planet’s thick blanket of clouds.

Sunrise: 6:32 A.M.
Sunset: 4:55 P.M.
Moonrise: 3:38 P.M.
Moonset: 4:07 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (97%)

Tuesday, November 4
Tonight Jupiter sports a three-for-one as Io transits with its shadow in tow and Europa’s shadow sneaks onto the disk in preparation for its own moon to transit.

Jupiter rises around 9:30 P.M. local time in Gemini the Twins. East Coast observers will be able to see the ingress of Io’s shadow, which appears on the eastern limb around 10:20 P.M. EST. By the time Jupiter is rising in the Mountain time zone, the shadow is roughly halfway across the disk, with Io itself just crossing onto the disk from the east. Europa is farther east, while Callisto (closest) and Ganymede (farther) lie to the planet’s west.

Europa’s shadow appears on the disk at 12:12 a.m. EST on the 5th (in EST only). By this time, Io’s shadow is approaching the western limb and Io is about one-third of the way across the disk. There’s now a 20-minute window when both shadows are visible together with transiting Io. Io’s shadow reaches the western limb and disappears at 12:32 a.m. EST. Make sure to convert these times to your local time so you don’t miss the brief show! (Also, if you’re reading this in advance, remember the change to standard time on the 2nd.)

Once Io’s shadow disappears, Io still has half the disk to traverse. It takes a little more than an hour, with Io finally reaching the western limb around 1:45 A.M. EST. And it’s nearly one more hour before Europa begins to transit, with that event starting just after 2:40 A.M. EST.

Sunrise: 6:33 A.M.
Sunset: 4:54 P.M.
Moonrise: 4:07 P.M.
Moonset: 5:25 A.M.
Moon Phase: Full

Wednesday, November 5
November’s Full Moon occurs at 8:19 A.M. EST. This month’s Full Moon is also called the Beaver Moon.

The Moon also reaches perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit, just hours later, at 5:27 P.M. EST. Our satellite is then 221,726 miles (356,833 km) away. When these two events — the Full phase and perigee — coincide, we see a phenomenon called a Super Moon, during which the Moon appears slightly larger and brighter than normal. In this case, as the Moon rises this evening, it appears 33.5’ wide. Compare that to its average size of 31’ — not a huge difference, but you may notice it seems a bit brighter tonight than at other times during the year. The Full Moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise, so there’s plenty of time to enjoy it, no matter when you step outside to take a look.

This is the second of three Super Moons in 2025, with next month closing out the year with the December Cold Moon as a Super Moon as well. The definition of a Super Moon is a little loose, however, as it is not an official designation. So, outlets often determine their own threshold for how close a Full Moon must be to perigee to qualify. According to Farmers’ Almanac, 2026 will carry three Super Moons as well, in January, November, and December. But according to the Royal Museums Greenwich, only the December Full Moon occurs close enough to perigee to earn “super” status.

The Moon rises in Aries this evening, leading the Pleiades (M45) into the sky as our satellite stands 10° west of the young group of stars. By tomorrow, their positions will be reversed, with M45 leading the way and the Moon trailing, having moved east of the open cluster.

The Pleiades is a great target for binoculars and small scopes — in fact, the lower the magnification, the better. Even a finder scope will show it well. Roughly 445 light-years away and 100 million years old, this cluster spans 110’ on the sky and contains at least several hundred stars. Its brightest suns, visible to the naked eye, make the shape of a tiny spoon or dipper in the sky — though don’t confuse this with the much larger Little Dipper in the north!

Observers can watch overnight as the Moon crosses the rest of Aries and finally moves into Taurus shortly after 5:30 A.M. EST on the 6th. After both have set for those in the contiguous U.S., the Moon will make its way across several stars in the Pleiades in an occultation visible from parts of Alaska, Asia, and Europe.

Sunrise: 6:34 A.M.
Sunset: 4:53 P.M.
Moonrise: 4:42 P.M.
Moonset: 6:46 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (99%)

Thursday, November 6
The Moon passes 5° north of Uranus at noon EST and rises east of (after) the Pleiades this evening.

Meanwhile, Titan transits Saturn tonight, with the event underway as darkness falls on the East Coast. By the time the sky is dark, you’ll see Saturn 30° high in the southeast, glowing at magnitude 0.8 (the brightest light in that region). You’ll need a telescope to watch the transit.

Titan is moving from east to west; it reaches halfway across the disk just before 7 P.M. EST. It finally reaches the western limb just before 9:30 P.M. EST and takes more than 15 minutes to move fully off the disk, given the large size of this moon.

Although Titan is the only moon you can see transiting against the glare of Saturn’s cloud tops, it’s not the only satellite to do so tonight. Earlier in the evening, Dione leads Titan westward across the disk, exiting around 6:40 P.M. EST. The moon itself cannot be seen visually against the brilliance of the disk, though it and its tiny shadow may be visible in stills from high-speed video capture techniques. Similarly, Rhea begins a transit just after 6:20 P.M. EST, also invisible to the eye against the disk. Its shadow appears around 7:45 P.M. EST. Rhea’s transit ends just before 10:20 P.M. EST, when the 10th-magnitude moon is less than 3” southeast of brighter, mid-8th-magnitude Titan. If you wait an hour, Rhea will pass due south of Titan as the pair travels just north of the western side of the rings, rendering the two impossible to separate by eye.

Sunrise: 6:35 A.M.
Sunset: 4:52 P.M.
Moonrise: 5:27 P.M.
Moonset: 8:09 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (96%)

Friday, November 7
Let’s return to Cassiopeia to round out the week with a different open cluster: M103. Shining at magnitude 7.4, you can find this group near magnitude 2.7 Delta Cas. Simply center this star in binoculars or a small telescope, then move 1° northeast to your target.

Spanning about 6’ on the sky, M103 contains a few dozen bright stars. At some 8,000 to 9,000 light-years from Earth, it’s one of the more distant open clusters that appears on Messier’s list. M103 is likely about 25 million years old, though that number is fairly uncertain and some estimates put it at a much younger 9 million to 12 million years.

Note the bright red giant in the rough center of this cluster — its hue may appear red or orange compared with the blue-white stars around it.

Sunrise: 6:36 A.M.
Sunset: 4:50 P.M.
Moonrise: 6:22 P.M.
Moonset: 9:29 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (90%)

  Nov. 2-7: Super Moon on Nov. 5, The Sky, Titan transits Saturn on Nov. 6