Treasures of the Night
Some simple stargazing ideas
Sometime back I promised I’d write a blog about stargazing. Clear, frosty nights with the prospect of a deep velvet, star studded sky are magical for studying the heavens. This brief introduction describes the Northern hemisphere night sky.
When is Best for Stargazing?
If possible, choose a moonless night; wrap up warmly, take a compass, a rug and/ or deck chairs and a thermos and make an evening of it. If possible, find somewhere with little light pollution and camp the night. My children still talk about the first time they slept under the stars. We were on the Wiltshire/ Dorset border and the sky was deep blue and scattered with jewels. The impossible beauty of the night registered with three year olds in such a way that they frequently ask for a star gazing night many years later. So, before you start looking for specific constellations, gaze upward and take while to be awed.
Remember, the stars are given names of figures and objects that they look vaguely like. It is worth explaining to youngsters that they won’t see people, a plough or dogs as they might expect in a drawing.
The Plough, Cassiopeia and the North Star: finding North
If you’ve not star gazed before, one of best ways to get started is to locate Ursa Major usually known as The Plough or The Saucepan, a group of seven stars (known to our American friends as the Big Dipper). The Plough can be spotted to the north. The brightest star above the pan part of the saucepan shape is the North Star also known as Polaris. The Plough rotates anti- clockwise around the North Star so it can appear to be sideways or upside down but its relationship to the North Star remains constant. This is why it remains a good starting point for navigation. The North Star is directly over the North Pole. Find this and you have found north.
Pretty much equidistant from the North Star, on the opposite side to The Plough you can see Cassiopeia, an extended zigzag of five stars. Cassiopeia is useful for finding the North Star as it high in the sky when The Plough is low down and may not be visible.
We can discover our latitude from the North Star too. The North Star is at the same angle above the horizon as your latitude. For a rough guide, hold your arm outstretched with a vertical fist to create an angle of 10 degrees. Use this to measure the angle to the North Star and you have found your latitude.
Orion: finding East and West
To find Orion in the northern hemisphere, look into the south western sky at night. Find three bright stars close together in a row. These make up Orion’s Belt. The two bright stars to the north represent his shoulders while those to south represent his feet. Orion rises in the east and sets in the west. It is the stars of the belt that aid navigation as they rise very close to due east and set very close to due west. For those of you wanting the fine detail, the first star on the belt to rise and set is called Mintaka.
Satellites, the ‘Not Stars’
You may see some stars that appear yellow and less bright than those around them; they may move slowly. These are not stars but satellites, sent into space from Earth. Many are there to provide telecommunications for our mobile phones, send data to our GPS devices and to enable us to watch certain television channels. One satellite you might see is the International Space Station (the ISS). Opportunities to see the ISS pass overhead can be found online. https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/index.cfm . The distances of even near space are brought into perspective when one realises that the small bright object you are watching move across the sky has people inside it.
The Moon
It is worth finding a separate time to view the Moon. It’s also worth explaining to children that this ball of rock orbiting the Earth is not a planet or a star, it is a moon. A moon is an object that rotates around a planet in a regular cycle. Many planets have more than one moon; Jupiter has twelve. Our moon appears as full, gibbous and crescent as it waxes and wanes as the light of sun illuminates different aspects of it. On a clear night it is possible to see the less illuminated part of the moon as a sliver edges deep blue shadow. When the moon is full, many craters and ‘seas’ on its surface can be seen as faces, hares or rabbits. From Asia to North America rabbits and hares are seen. The Chinese moon rover of 2013 was named Yutu, the Jade Rabbit, recalling a Chinese folk tale. It’s well worth looking at the moon through binoculars or a telescope to see the craters on the surface.
Meteor Showers
Meteors are particles of rock which have broken off an asteroid or comet which bounce on the Earth’s atmosphere. We see them as streaks of incandescent light: shooting stars. Many meteor showers are annual events. Have a look at the guide below to find out which can be seen when.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide
If you find stargazing is your thing, it’s worth investing in a good star guide to expend your knowledge. There is plenty to discover without expensive equipment. While basics of finding direction have been explained here, there is much more to discover about astral navigation too.
Go outside. Look up.