Archive for the ‘constellations’ Tag
September’s usually a loaded month, for all sorts of reasons. Kids head back to school, there’s a big holiday capping off the traditional summer holiday, all the zucchini’s either ripened at once and your neighbors run from you as you clutch your harvest, chasing them, and we turn the season from boiling to pleasant.
There’s all sorts of things going on above our heads as well. We started off the month with a solar eclipse today, in Africa. That means in two weeks, we’re going to see a lunar eclipse on September 16. Solar and lunar eclipses always appear in pairs, about two weeks apart. This time, the penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible throughout all of Europe, Asia, Australia, but not North and South America, except for the easternmost part of Brazil.
If you know your constellations, Scorpio is crawling back down southwest to get away for the winter. It’s taking with it a colorful trio of two planets, a star and one moon…but just for a day or two. Around the second week of September, you’ll see Antares, a big red star located in the upper portion of the constellation, Saturn to the upper right and Mars to the upper left. The moon on the half-shell will add its glow to the grouping.
September’s a fine month to spot the so-called Summer Triangle, a trio of constellations (The Swan, The Eagle and The Lyre) forming a jewel of a triangle consisting of two first magnitude stars and one zero magnitude: Vega (0.14 mag) in The Lyre, Altair (0.89 mag) in The Eagle and Deneb (1.33 mag). With luck, you can see this grouping almost all year round, but the best time for it is during the summer, when it’s nearly overhead in the Milky Way. Vega is especially close to Polaris, the North Star, and only goes below the horizon at latitudes 40 degrees for a handful of hours. The further north you go, the longer you can see it.
On Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 14:21 UTC, autumn officially begins in the northern hemisphere. That’s when you start thinking about how fast that summer went past, you still didn’t get to the beach, but that’s okay, because you can’t get into your bathing suit anyway. So why don’t you do yourself a favor? Toss on a sweater, take a chair and have a seat, looking up at the greatest gift we all have at our disposal: the heavens.
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There’s a tiny, disk-sized patch of snow behind the museum where I work, a reminder that winter wasn’t all that long ago. I keep waiting for it to melt, but it refuses, so I ignore it and remember that its water’s going to water the grass it’s hiding. In defiance, some crocuses finally gathered the gumption to bloom – a month late – and later the daffodils joined in.
Ah, spring!
But if that snow didn’t want to release its chilly grip on Earth, all I had to do was look up and see the spring sky greet me. Clouds are the only impediment to these yearly harbingers of warmer times.
I’ve got a few favs I eagerly look for when the days begin to lengthen. When Leo starts strutting up that heavenly hill come February, spring isn’t far behind.
There’s no mistaking him. He’s got a jewel on one foot, Regulus, magnitude 1.4, and sports another in his tail, Denebola, a bright second-magnitude (2.14) star. He leads the parade for my next favorite grouping:
Bootes, the Herdsman. You can’t mistake him either, although he’s so large it’ll might take a little patience to find him. His main-feature star, Arcturus, lights up his lap. He’s sitting down, smoking his pipe, wondering how all those sheep he was supposed to watch disappeared (perhaps Leo ate them?).
Or maybe he’s just trying to hide that hunk of bling behind him, the Northern Crown, or Corona Borealis. It has a second-magnitude star, Gemma, actually a binary star, or two stars rotating around each other. Its magnitude shifts from 2.21 to 2.32, not very noticeable with the unaided eye. You’d need seventeen straight days to stare up at it with a telescope to measure the change.
Credit: Till Credner (Own work: AlltheSky.com)
We all know how lions pride themselves on their gorgeous manes. Bootes must share the same sentiment, because between him and Leo, there’s a fantastic group of very faint stars known as Berenice’s Hair.
It’s small, but that doesn’t make it special! There are eight galaxies within it, several globular clusters, 200 variable stars in its region and if that weren’t enough, the North Galactic Pole is amidst her strands. But wait! There’s more! She gets all twinkly and festive during the Christmas season. Bragging her own meteor showers during December and January, she peaks from December 18-25, right in time for the holidays. It’s also important, when looking at her, not to expect to spot the Milky Way. When her hair is high in the sky, the Milky Way is lower in the sky, on or near the horizon.
And speaking of meteor showers, in mornings you’ll find the Lyrids, or meteor showers occurring near the constellation Lyra. Those occur at the end of April, peaking between April 22-25. The radiant is where to look; the meteors seem to be originating from that point.
Credit: astrobob.areavoices.com
Now, get off that couch, stop texting, get outside and go have yourselves a great look at the nighttime sky!
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Andrew’s wonderful Christmas present to me…
I have to trumpet the best present I’ve ever longed for and received – a brand spankin’ new telescope! And not just any telescope, my own Celestron NexStar 130SLT! I’ve always lusted after one of these, and now, I OWN ONE. Just in time to see Comet Lovejoy! I’d like to take it outside tonight, as it’s nearest to the earth, but we’ve had some snow and I don’t know if the sky’s going to clear in time. That, and it’s WELL below freezing tonight. Still, that’s the optimal time to gaze at the heavens, because there won’t be any of that nasty haze interfering with the brilliance of the winter nighttime sky.
For those of you who own or have access to telescopes, the best thing about them is how it changes your perspective on what’s up there in the nighttime sky. I had my first one at 12, but then it fell off the roof when I was trying to focus in on Comet Kohoutek. That ended that. Over the years I’ve belonged to astronomy clubs and peeked through fellow amateur astronomers. Now, for the first time in years, I have one that’s powerful enough for me to zoom in on not just the planets, but Messier objects, novas, galaxies, double stars – the works!
My husband used to look up at the evening stars with his father back in his native England. Their back garden in Launceston, Cornwall offered a terrific view, since it was near the top of a hill, without much to obscure the stars. After life at 40.7127° N, 74.0059° W for years, I had a chance to see things at 50.6350° N, 4.3540° W. My eyes, formerly trained to look at my favorite celestial objects at a lower latitude now had to focus somewhere else. That only took a moment, but it also meant that I couldn’t see a few constellations I’d grown used to seeing skirting the horizon at my latitude.
It’s fair to say Andrew’s into this scope just as much as I am. He’s a photographer and this Celestron has the capability for nighttime picture taking. I personally can’t wait to get the thing outside and pointed upwards. Truth be told, I don’t care where I look. There’s sure to be something wonderful when I peer into the eyepiece, and I can’t imagine being disappointed at what I’ll see.
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Lately in the news there’s been a lot of buzz about the Orion rocket.
This post, however, is about the constellation and, unlike the rocket, is already in space and will be there pretty much forever, although with the passage of time, he’ll look a little different. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic for another time.
Winter’s chilly skies offer an excellent opportunity to view this bright constellation. When he rises in the east, he almost looks as if he’s climbing a hill, until he reaches the midheavens, and then he starts his journey back down into the west. Right now’s the best time to see him, and he’ll be up right until spring.
Orion’s got plenty of company, too. In his patch of the sky, some of winter’s brightest stars and constellations gather in his neck of the woods. His shoulder (pictured in the upper left hand star in the above rectangle) is Betelgeuse, and his lower right hand foot is Rigel. You can trace a hexagon going up to the right and a touch north to the “V” shape that is the head of Taurus, and the brightest star in the “V” is Aldebaran. Next, cast your eyes up and over slightly left and you’ll come to Capella, the eye of the charioteer Auriga. Going left in almost a straight line, you’ll come to the stick figure twins, whose heads are Castor and Pollux, which are actually the Gemini twin’s names. Next, drop your gaze a little south and to the left and you’ll come to Procyon, the very bright star of Canis Minor, or, the Little Dog. But his big brother, Canis Major, or Big Dog, hosts the brightest star in the sky, Sirius. His basic shape is also a thinner rectangle, and you can easily find Sirius if you trace a southwest path using Orion’s belt as a pointer.
Credit: Dave Snyder
Even if you have trouble finding each of these stars on the first try, you’ll notice that this section of the evening sky stands out more than others, and if you go to this site, you’ll find an explanation and some tips on locating these and other favorites.
But wait – there’s more!
A constellation as grand as Orion simply won’t stop at dominating the winter sky. It’s what’s inside him that makes him even more fascinating.
Look at the picture above and you will see an “N” in the lower half of Orion’s depiction. That’s the Orion Nebula, and although a bit faint, on a clear winter night you should be able to make out a tiny hazy patch. Even with typical field glasses the details of it come out clearer. What makes that nebula so remarkable is what it contains. A solar system nursery is there, wherein a collection of youthful stars and planets in the forming stage are present. The New York Times has an excellent article and a wonderful video detailing the action swirling around in Orion’s belt.
So don’t just sit there! Put on a jacket, go outside and look up – you’ll be rewarded with heavenly treasure, free and yours for the taking.
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Back in the sixth grade, I wandered into the school library to pick out a good read. At the time, I had a serious crush on Encyclopedia Brown. He was so cute, so smart, and he had a girl for a bodyguard. As an added bonus, his Dad was the Chief of Police, giving him an edge to solve mysteries. As I sifted through the shelves, I was horrified to discover that all of the EB books had taken leave with another student. I felt betrayed somehow, as if he was cheating on me. Brokenhearted, I rifled through the science section, thinking, “I’ll show him,” and selected a topic far and away from his range of knowledge. If EB thought detecting was cool, I was out to prove that astronomy was much, much cooler.
At that age, I knew few constellations, mainly the standards like the Dippers (technically speaking, the Big Dipper is an asterism), Orion and a few others. I had a really cheap telescope and stared at the moon when it passed by my bedroom window. I did see all these gloriously illustrated pictures of people and things superimposed over stars. Yet when I tried to find them in the sky, I had a better chance of solving EB’s mysteries a few pages in than I ever did figuring out where those group of stars happened to be.
Sticking out at an odd angle was a deep blue and yellow book. Its spine said The Stars and was written by H.A. Rey. Say, wasn’t he the “Curious George” guy? The book’s colors were similar (think the man in the yellow hat). I pulled it out and on the cover was the constellation Gemini, actually looking like stick figure twins. I opened the book and there were many more constellations to choose from, all more or less resembling what they were meant to represent.
It was a revelation.
Rey’s many charts in the book redrew the lines connecting the stars and by doing so, revolutionized the way the average person sees the constellations. To this day, I wonder why no one had thought of this before. Thanks to his insight, many field guides have adopted his methods of presenting the constellations. Even Albert Einstein noticed his work and said, “Many thanks for your lucid and stimulating book. I hope it will find the interest it deserves.”
Every night I could, I’d go outside with my copy of The Stars and see what else there was hanging out in the heavens. Before long, I knew them all, when they rose and set, what season they belonged to and how to find planets among them. The stars became my friends. Excited to see The Herdsman each spring, I’d ask him how things were since we last met. The Scorpion, first rising at dawn at the end of January, makes me happy to know that summer’s not all that far away if it’s rising. Aquarius, my sign, is a gorgeous constellation that spreads across the late summer and early fall sky, if somewhat dim.
Rey conceived this book for anyone sharing the love of the heavens as he did. I highly recommend this book who wishes to embrace and further their love for the stars. And when next watching your favorite sci-fi show or movie, you’ll know exactly where the Andromeda Galaxy is…clearly marked on the knee of the constellation for which the galaxy is named…as shown on Page 42.
The Stars: A New Way to See Them, (ISBN 0-395-24830-2)
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The constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent Holder), as shown on http://www.frostydew.org
Most people take for granted that there’s a safe, stable number of zodiac constellations: 12. I bet you can even name them. But here’s one that you might not know: Ophiuchus.
Who?
You heard me: Ophiuchus.
My friend, I’ve been a Ophiuchus fan for years. He’s the most underrated member of the ecliptic going. His legs dangle ever so tenuously into the zodiac, just above Scorpius. He’s actually trying to step on it – wouldn’t you? Planets have been know to trod on his toes or through his legs.
So why isn’t he part of the party? There’s all sorts of reasons for that. Some say it’s traditional to have 12 signs of the zodiac, but the more practical application is that the area around the constellations has been allotted and Ophiuchus’ official territory doesn’t count for much. In fact, I could write a million blogs just about that, but why bother? What makes him most interesting is he’s also thought to be the only celestial representation of a historical person.
According to H.A. Rey, noted amateur astronomer and writer of “Curious George” books, he states:
“To speak of the Serpent Holder [Ophiuchus] as a doctor is not a mere whim. The figure is thought to represent Asklepios, Greek god of medicine who can be traced back to the Egyptian Imhotep (about 2900 BC), eminent physician and architect and first man of science in recorded history. The Serpent Holder thus becomes, indirectly, the only constellation representing a historical person.”
In Greek mythology, Asklepios was a doctor who knew the secret of death. Since his patients continued to live healthy, productive lives, Hades, the god of the underworld, grew uneasy. No deaths, no need for an underworld. Dr. Asklepios’ services were called into order when Orion was killed by a scorpion. As Dr. A tried to revive him, he found himself on the business end of a lighting bolt, shot by none other than Zeus himself. Hades had called on his brother Z to do the dirty work, in order to continue his employment. But the good Dr. A was recognized as a worthy sort and so found a home for eternity among the stars, along with Orion’s killer scorpion. They reside on opposite sides of the night sky, so when you see one, you cannot see the other. Keeps everyone out of trouble this way.
Ophiuchus isn’t just a zodiacal oddity. He has planets of his own. 15, to be exact. So why bother with waiting for any of our solar system’s planet to cross his territory when he doesn’t have to? One planet in particular, GJ 1214, is only 42 light years away and is presently being observed for more data.
If you’d like to see Ophiuchus for yourself, his calling hours are generally late May, July and August, in the southern portion of the sky, just above Scorpio. He’s a little dim, but on a clear night you can pick him out.
And who knows? One of these nights, you might find a planet wandering nearby.
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Moon, Stars and Beyond 