Tuesday evening, November 10th, about an hour or so after sunset, the 14.5-day old waxing gibbous Moon will be about 2-3o from the reddish star Aldebaran. Aldebaran is at one end of the v-shaped open star cluster the Hyades in Taurus the Bull.
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Early chilly mornings yes, but two planets are visible before the Sun rises. Maybe seeing Mars and Mercury will make it worthwhile? They are both within the realm of the constellation Libra the Scales. As a bonus Dwarf Planet Haumea is also above the horizon but with an apparent magnitude of 17.0 it is virtually invisible without some optical assistance.
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Our Moon reaches apogee, (greatest distance from Earth), for this orbit, on Thursday December 5th. At that time the Moon will be at a distance of 31.70 Earth diameters 251,311 miles (404,447 km) from the Earth.
On the day of the apogee Moon the 9-day old waxing gibbous Moon rises during mid-afternoon and sets later the following morning several hours before sunrise..
Does our Moon actually go around the Earth as this graphic shows? From our perspective on the Earth the Moon appears to circle around the Earth. However, in reality, the Moon orbits the Sun together with the Earth*
*Click here to read my 2006 Scope on the Sky column “The Real Shape of the Moon’s Orbit”. (PDF)
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for monthly observing information, or here to go to bobs-spaces.
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Once in a while the planets are arranged such that they are spread across the sky as they look in this graphic. However over time, several days, this arrangement changes as the planets continue moving along their orbits.
The planets are not lined up in a straight line outward from the Sun but rather are arranged along the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the Earth’s orbital path around the Sun and the respective orbit of each planet is inclined from the ecliptic. And this is one of those times when it is easy to visualize the ecliptic. Click here to read a previous posting about the ecliptic and planet inclination.
This animated graphic is showing the terrestrial planets as they move along their respective orbits for this month. They are not ‘lined up’ as they appear to be in the above horizon picture.
This graphic shows the solar system out to Neptune and from this perspective the planets are obviously not in a straight line on December 1st.
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Yesterday Friday November 29th the Moon crossed the plane of the ecliptic moving south. This is known as the descending node, one of two intersections the Moon’s orbital path (dark green line) has with the ecliptic. For those keeping count this is the 2nd descending node crossing for the Moon this month.
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Saturday, November 30th the Sun in its apparent eastward motion along the ecliptic, moves out of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion and into the constellation of Ophiuchus the Healer. This is the true or actual position of the Sun as opposed to the pseudoscience of astrology which usually has the astrological Sun one constellation ahead or east from the Astronomical Sun’s position.
Ophiuchus is the 13th constellation of the zodiac (Astronomical) but does not appear in the astrological zodiac nor in the astrology column found in many newspapers. A constellation of either zodiac is defined the same way, using the ecliptic path. If the ecliptic passes through a constellation boundary then that constellation is a zodiac constellation. In the graphics I use the ecliptic path clearly crosses across the boundary for the constellation Ophiuchus the Healer.
Ophiuchus is described in a mythology story as a healer. In one story following a mortal fight between Orion and Scorpius the Scorpion Ophiuchus kills the scorpion by stepping on it; extracts the venom from the scorpion; and then uses it to bring Orion back to life.
In Ophiuchus’s hands he is holding a long snake, the 2-part constellation of Serpens – Serpens Cauda (tail of the snake) and Serpens Caput (head of the snake). There are many stories about Ophiuchus and the snake including one where this is the origin of the symbol for medicine, the caduceus. However the caduceus is used primarily in the United States as the symbol for medicine, and is depicted as 2 snakes wrapped around a staff with wings. 
If there is a connection with a medical symbol then it should be with the Rod of Asclepius, a staff with one snake.
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At around sunset Thursday November 28th look toward the western horizon for the 2.5-day old thin waxing crescent Moon to be close to the inner planet Venus, and an outer planet, Jupiter. The Moon will be about 1-2o from Venus and about 6o from Jupiter.
Too dim to be seen with the naked eye at 8-9th magnitude and about 3o from the Moon is the Dwarf Planet Ceres.
The planet Saturn is about 12o to the east from the Moon – which is where the Moon will be on the evening of November 29th. The two will be about 1-2o from one another.
Both of these conjunctions between the Moon and planets are tight enough such that both groupings will easily fit within the field of view of binoculars.
