With the end of daylight savings time and the approaching winter solstice, November evenings offer several hours of darkness to view our glorious night sky while still getting a full night’s sleep. Conversely you can rise a bit earlier and still catch Venus, Saturn, Mars and even Mercury before the sun rises.

  Often we think of astronomy as an evening activity but a number of celestial highlights occur this October in pre-dawn hours. Just as Venus took centre stage earlier this year in the evening sky, it now blazes high in the eastern morning sky. On October 5 the moon passes close to the Beehive Star Cluster. While visible to the naked eye, binoculars will reveal about a dozen bright stars and several other fainter stars in close proximity to the waning crescent moon.