In addition to the Moon, which makes its monthly cycle from new (Nov. 9) to full (Nov. 24), the familiar and easy-to-identify winter constellations are starting to rise above the eastern horizon. These include Gemini, Orion, Taurus, and the Pleiades star cluster. The Pleiades cluster is the first to rise just at sunset, followed by the other constellations making their slow climb into the evening sky.

Pleiades is called the Seven Sisters because it is a cluster of seven bright stars bunched together. They ride on the back of the constellation Taurus. Taurus, the next to rise, is shaped like a "V" (the horns of a bull) with a bright red star named Aldebaran (the eye of the bull) at the apex.

Chasing Taurus across the sky is the great hunter – Orion, with his distinctive belt of three bright stars in a line. Above the belt representing his shoulder is a bright red star named Betelgeuse, and below the belt marking one of his feet is a bright blue star named Rigel. The last of the familiar evening winter constellations to rise is Gemini, a pair of side-by-side bright stars, Castor and Pollux.

In addition to this parade of bright stars rising in the east, during the month of November, the planet Jupiter sets in the southwest sky at sunset, and the red planet Mars rises in the east-north-east sky at around 9 p.m. Another cosmic treat that is currently visible in the evening sky is a naked eye comet named 17P Holmes. It can be seen as a large "fuzzy" star in the constellation Perseus in the northeast sky.

Because of urban light pollution (light beamed up into the sky from all our street lights, signs, and buildings), only a few hundred bright stars are visible on a clear night from Culver City. If you visit Joshua Tree, Death Valley or Anza-Borrego State Park, you would be able to see thousands of stars as well as the Milky Way. Light pollution is one of the sad legacies of our modern urban population centers. We are poorer for no longer being able to look up into the night sky as our ancestors did and be amazed at the full grandeur of the heavens.

The sky visible from Culver City in mid-November at about 8 p.m.