2025, November 21: Sun, Moon, and Planet Almanac: Late November 2025 Skywatching Guide

November 21, 2025: Track the Sun, Moon, and planets. Venus fades into bright twilight, Mercury races toward its best morning appearance, Jupiter dominates the night, and Uranus reaches opposition.

Jupiter's volcanically active moon Io casts its shadow on the planet in this dramatic image from NASA's Juno spacecraft. As with solar eclipses on the Earth, within the dark circle racing across Jupiter's cloud tops one would witness a full solar eclipse as Io passes in front of the Sun. (NASA Photo)
Photo Caption – Jupiter’s volcanically active moon Io casts its shadow on the planet in this dramatic image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. As with solar eclipses on the Earth, within the dark circle racing across Jupiter’s cloud tops one would witness a full solar eclipse as Io passes in front of the Sun. (NASA Photo)

by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:47 a.m. CST; Sunset, 4:26 p.m. CST.  Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.

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Almanac for Sun, Moon and Planets

  • Sun: The central star continues its southward trek, rising and setting farther south along the horizon. It is directly overhead at noon for observers at latitude 20° south. At Chicago’s latitude, daylight lasts 9 hours, 19 minutes. From Miami, the sun is above the horizon for 9 hours, 47 minutes, while in Anchorage daylight spans 6 hours, 45 minutes.
  • Moon: Lunation 1273 — the count of lunar cycles since 1923 — began yesterday. For sky watchers at mid-northern latitudes, the solar system’s evening display is poor. The moon returns to the southwestern sky tomorrow evening after sunset.

Inner Planets

Mercury as Never Seen Before
Photo Caption – Mercury as Never Seen Before. (NASA photo)
  • Mercury: The innermost planet passed inferior conjunction — between Earth and Sun — yesterday. It quickly moves into the morning sky for its best morning appearance of the year, reaching its peak early next month.
Venus, November 21, 2025
Chart Caption – 2025, November 21: Venus is low in the east-southeast during bright morning twilight.
  • Venus: The Morning Star descends deeper into bright morning twilight. Now rising less than an hour before sunrise, Venus is less than 5° above the east-southeast horizon 30 minutes before sunrise, about the time outdoor lighting turns off. Initially locate the planet with a binocular. Then attempt to see it without optical aid.

Outer Planets

Mars from Hubble during 2018
Photo Caption – NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photographed Mars on July 18, 2018, during a dust storm and near its closest approach to Earth since 2003. (NASA photo)
  • Mars: The Red Planet is moving toward its conjunction with the sun early next year. It is veiled by bright evening twilight, setting only 40 minutes after nightfall.
Jupiter, November 21, 2025
Chart Caption – 2025, November 21: An hour before sunrise, bright Jupiter is high in the west-southwest near Pollux, a Gemini Twin.
  • Jupiter: The Jovian Giant rises in the east-northeast nearly four hours after sunset, outshining all the stars tonight. It crosses highest above the south direction about three hours before sunrise and appears high in the west-southwest during morning twilight. The planet continues its slow retrograde motion — westward against the background stars — 6.7° to Pollux’s lower left, one of the Gemini Twins. Through a telescope, the shadows of two of Jupiter’s moons cross its cloud tops beginning at 01:33 UTC, although the planet is still below the horizon for the Americas.
Saturn, November 21, 2025
Chart Caption – 2025, November 21: An hour after sunset, Saturn is less than halfway up in the southeast.
  • Saturn: Until Jupiter rises, Saturn is the lone bright planet in the night sky. As darkness falls, the Ringed Wonder is less than halfway up in the southeast and retrograding in front of Pisces’ dim stars. It is in the south about three hours after sunset. With early sunsets, Saturn presents an excellent telescopic target. In the eyepiece, the rings appear nearly edge-on, resembling a thin line through the planet. Saturn is dimmer than average because the icy ring particles reflect much of the sunlight away from Earth.
Binocular View - Uranus and Pleiades
Chart Caption – 2025, mid-November: Through a binocular, Uranus appears with the Pleiades star cluster. It is near the star 14 Tauri (Tau).
  • Uranus: The Tilted World reaches opposition tonight, rising at sunset. Earth is between the Sun and Uranus, though Uranus is 19 times farther from the Sun than Earth. From a rural site, the planet is visible near the Pleiades star cluster. Through a binocular, Uranus appears about the same brightness as 13, 14, 32, and 37 Tauri (Tau) — all within the same field of view — and shows a subtle aquamarine hue.
Binocular View - Saturn and Neptune - mid-November, 2025
Chart Caption – 2025, mid-November: Use this chart to find Neptune in the same binocular field with Saturn. Attempt to see it 4-5 hours after sunset.
  • Neptune: The solar system’s most distant planet is challenging to see but detectable with persistence and averted vision. Locate it when Saturn is high in the south, away from the thicker air near the horizon that blurs and dims celestial bodies. Neptune is considerably dimmer than the stars 20, 24, 27 and 29 Piscium (Psc), which share the binocular field with Saturn and the planet. It appears as a faint blue star.

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