This weekend will kick off astronomy activities for the month of November with the full beaver moon reaching its peak early Saturday morning on the East Coast, or late Friday night on the West Coast.

The November full moon is also called the full beaver moon, or the full frost moon. The reason for the name beaver moon is that it used to mark the time during which it was best to set traps for beavers before the waters froze. The name full frost moon comes from the fact that it happens around the same time as the first frost of the year.

Last year the November full moon was the supermoon because it was the full moon that occurred when the moon was closest in its orbit to Earth. But this year the moon will be closest during December, making the December's full moon the supermoon, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

The moon will rise at 5:57 p.m. EDT on Friday and will reach its fullest point around 1:25 a.m. EDT Saturday morning. This is when the moon will be full, and the hours immediately before and after the fullest moment the moon will still appear full to the naked eye.

It will also appear fairly full on the evening of Saturday Nov. 4, the night before the clocks set back an hour for Daylight Saving Time. In the days following the full moon, as it grows smaller and smaller, or waxes, the moon will travel through three star clusters. On the 5 it will appear to travel through the Pleiades, on the 7 the Messier or M-35 star cluster and on the 10 it will look as though it’s cutting through the Beehive cluster. These can be seen with binoculars or a telescope.

In addition to the moon, Venus will be fairly visible those evenings as well, although the best time to see Venus this month will come on the 13. On that early morning it will pair up with Jupiter and the two will appear close to one another.

The best time to see this will occur about 45 minutes before sunrise begins. You can see if by looking east-southeast very close to the horizon line, according to NASA. But be sure not to look at the sun as it rises, especially if you’re using binoculars or a telescope to get a good look at the planets.

Also later this month there will be several meteor showers, but none of them will be particularly saturated with shooting stars. The Leonids meteor shower will likely be the one with the most meteors, with about 10 an hour during the peak of the shower. This shower will occur on the 17 followed by one on the 28.

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