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The Stargaze Thread *Sticky* -- Stars, Constellations, and The Night Sky.
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| Lagrangian |
A thread about stargazing, I'll be focusing on the Northern Hemisphere/Northern Celestial Dome. If someone can do a stargazing guide for the Southern Hemisphere that would be awesome.
Let's begin.
http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars...htest-star#find
Mirfak (Alpha Persei) ranks as the brightest star in the constellation Perseus, which represents a Hero in ancient skylore, but whose graceful shape always reminds me of someone dancing. Dancing Perseus also contains the sky’s most celebrated eclipsing binary star, Algol, sometimes called the Demon Star. Algol wins notoriety for its wild swings in brightness, which recur with clock-like precision. However, Mirfak is the easier of the two stars to find, and can serve as your guide star to Algol. Follow the links below to learn more about Mirfak, Perseus’ brightest star.
How to find Mirfak. The name Mirfak is derived from Arabic, meaning the Elbow of the Pleiades. In fact, the constellation Perseus lies due north of the Pleiades star cluster, also called the Seven Sisters. In other words, you can find Mirfak and Perseus in between the Pleiades cluster and Polaris, the North Star.
However, you can also take a more direct route to Mirfak, if you’re familiar with the M or W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. Draw an imaginary line through the Cassiopeia stars Navi (Gamma Cassiopeiae) and Ruchbah to jump over to Mirfak. Mirfak is the one Perseus star to stand out in moderately light-polluted skies, as its brilliance matches that of the stars of the famous Big Dipper. |
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| meriter |
| friend of mine had this app on his phone that you could point at the sky and it'd show you all the star names and constellations, pretty awesome. |
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| Sykonee |
| It's all about Orion at this time of the year. |
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| Lagrangian |
Beautiful night tonight.
I will post a few of the things I saw yesterday and those yet to be seen, today.
I would also like to extend this thread to include reports on UFO sightings; from an academic basis and purely empirical: objects and phenomena which are simply unidentifiable or explainable ; devoid from speculation. |
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| Ted Promo |
| I can do magical things with my budding . |
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| Vector A |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ted Promo
I can do magical things with my budding . |
But can your budding show you the names of the stars and constellations? |
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| Lagrangian |
This is the time of year when Orion shines in the east-southeast after dinnertime. He's well up now, but his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran and, even higher, the Pleiades. In the other direction, it points down to where bright Sirius is about to rise.
At mid-to-late evening tonight, don’t mistake that brilliant sparkly star Sirius in the southeast sky for Jupiter. Jupiter resides quite far north (or left) of Sirius, the famous Dog Star. Moreover, Jupiter outshines Sirius, even though Sirius ranks as the brightest star of the nighttime sky. Like any planet, Jupiter tends to shine with a steadier light than the twinkling stars.
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| Lagrangian |
It's been rather hard to stargaze when it is an activity I shared with my ex who I'm trying to forget. On the bright side, the stars teach a sense of perpetual continuity and evolution that we must embrace.
Contrast Capella with the ruddy star Aldebaran and the stars of the misty Pleiades cluster higher up. The light from a star reveals many things, but most directly the stars’ surface temperatures. The yellowish color of Capella indicates a mid-range surface temperature, much like our sun. The red of Aldebaran is typical of the lower surface temperature of an older star, whereas the blue of the Pleiades reveals their high surface temperature and young age.
The blue-white star Elnath, by the way, is officially part of Taurus, but it typically is considered part of Auriga as well.
There is a whole spectrum of stellar color sparkling in the sky tonight, from cool red stars to hot blue-white ones, and middle range yellow stars!
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| Lagrangian |
Mercury below Venus at nightfall. Mercury is our solar system’s innermost planet and always stays near the sun in our sky. However, January presents a grand month for catching Mercury in the evening sky for the Northern Hemisphere.
At mid-northern latitudes, this world sets about one hour after sun in early January. Some two weeks later – on January 14 – Mercury will reach reach its greatest elongation from the sun, to set a whopping one and one-half hours after sunset.
Mercury might – or might not – become visible to you in your evening sky in early January, when it sets about one hour after the sun. To see it, you’ll need a clear sky and an unobstructed horizon. It’ll be lots of fun to see, though, near Venus shortly after sunset. Your binoculars will help you scan for Mercury in the bright evening twilight. Have fun looking! And when you find it … what a special treat.
Be sure to circle January 10 on your calendar. That’s when Mercury and Venus will showcase their closest coupling on the sky’s dome until May 25, 2016!
Mars visible in sunset direction from nightfall until mid-evening. Mars reliably pops into view as soon as darkness falls throughout January, 2015. It is rather low in the southwestern twilight sky now. Catch the red planet at nightfall because this world sets rather early in the evening throughout January.
The red planet Mars is getting dimmer as it lags behind us in its larger and slower orbit, but is nonetheless visible to the unaided eye in a dark sky. This ruddy world still shines pretty much on par with a 1st-magnitude star, though the evening twilight obscures this planet’s luster. Mars starts the month in the constellation Capricornus and then enters the constellation Aquarius during the second week of January 2015.
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| AnotherWay83 |
| This thread is boring me. Someone please post pics of and ass |
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| Sykonee |
| quote: | Originally posted by AnotherWay83
This thread is boring me. Someone please post pics of and ass |
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| Lagrangian |
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