What’s up in the night sky: November 2026

Welcome to our night sky monthly feature where we focus on easy and fun things to see in the night sky, mostly with just your eyes. This month: a close pre-dawn encounter between Mars and Jupiter, the modest Leonid meteor shower with favorable dark skies, and yellowish Saturn continuing its great evening display.

Planet Watching in November

• All month: Yellowish Saturn is well-placed in the evening sky, visible in the southeast at sunset and high in the southern sky through the evening before setting in the late night.
• All month: Very bright, white Jupiter is in the late night and pre-dawn eastern sky. It moves closer to reddish Mars each morning, leading to a very close sky pairing on Nov. 15 and still close on days before and after that.
• All month: Reddish Mars is up in the late-night and early-morning eastern sky, near very bright Jupiter. It continues to gradually brighten as Earth and Mars grow closer together in their orbits.
• All month: Super bright Venus is very low in the pre-dawn east shortly before sunrise.
• Later in the month: Mercury makes an appearance low in the pre-dawn east before sunrise, reaching its highest point above the horizon on Nov. 20.

November highlights

Nov. 9: New Moon.

Nov. 10: Low in the pre-dawn east before sunrise, super bright Venus is near the bright blue-white star Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo. Being low to the horizon and with the sky brightening, they could be difficult to see, depending on your view.

Nov. 15-16: In the pre-dawn eastern sky, reddish Mars and very bright, white Jupiter are very close in the sky, making for a beautiful sight. They pass within less than a degree of each other, near the bright star Regulus in Leo.

Nov. 17-18: The Leonid meteor shower peaks on the night of Nov. 17-18. The Leonids are a modest shower, typically producing 10 to 15 meteors per hour from a dark site, caused by dust left behind by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. This year, the first quarter Moon sets around midnight, leaving the pre-dawn hours — the peak viewing time for the shower — dark and free from moonlight interference.

Nov. 20: In the evening sky, the crescent Moon is near yellowish Saturn in the eastern sky. 

Nov. 20: Mercury reaches greatest western elongation, its highest point above the pre-dawn eastern horizon for this viewing period.

Nov. 24: Full Moon. The November full Moon is sometimes known as the Beaver Moon.

Nov. 30: In the pre-dawn eastern sky, the crescent Moon joins very bright Jupiter and reddish Mars.