Daylight Saving Time ends on November 1, which means that only really early risers will catch the planetary show that’s been entertaining us in the mornings throughout October. Meanwhile, night falls around 5 p.m. for much of North America, and the planets nearly vacate the evening sky, leaving the stars to shine.

If you're up before 6 a.m. on November 2 and 3, look for Venus and Mars less than a degree apart. Jupiter will be slightly above them while Mercury will be quite low, rising just before the sun. On November 6 the moon is beside Jupiter, and on November 7 it joins Venus and Mars. It will sink all the way down to Mercury, but by then they’re both too close to the sun to spot. Instead, wait until the moon jumps to the other side of the sun and appears again in the evening as a young crescent. On November 12 it will lie beside Saturn as they set just after sunset.

Saturn gets closer to the sun, soon to join it, which means that for the rest of November, there are no naked-eye planets in the evening sky to observe. Instead, the stars of fall and winter will draw the eye on the long nights.

After dark, the stars of the Summer Triangle set in the west, Andromeda and Cassiopeia are high above, and constellations such as Taurus, Orion, and Gemini rise in the east. The Big Dipper in the north scrapes low against the horizon, like a spoon resting against the earth.

The Andromeda Galaxy is directly overhead for much of November. At 9 p.m. the week of November 15, the massive spiral galaxy that will one day crash into the Milky Way will be at zenith. In areas with low light pollution, it will appear as a fuzzy oval patch of light that you should be able to spot with binoculars, or even without.

Around November 17, the Leonid meteors will flash across the starry sky. The shower peaks on the evening of the 17th, but you might spot streaks from the dusty debris before or after that date. The meteors will look like they are emanating from Leo, which rises after midnight with Jupiter masquerading as its rear foot.