Stargazing on Vacation

I just took a few days off from cyberspace, recharging my batteries for writing. It helps a lot to step away from the keyboard and do other things—like watching sunsets. We’ve been doing it every clear night this summer. Each one is amazing, even when there are a lot of clouds in the sky. We get really dramatic sunsets, like this one.

Lately, just after sunset, the planet Venus has been putting on a show in the western twilight. You can’t miss it. It’s the bright dot of light that isn’t quite like a star. It’s going to be visible for another few weeks, so check it out.

If you wait a bit longer, you can spot Saturn in the southwestern sky. That one’s worth looking at through a small telescope if you have one handy; it’ll help you see the rings of Saturn.

After that, you just have to wait for the stars to come out.  When it’s dark enough, you can start to make out some familiar constellations.  And, if it’s really dark, you might be able to spot the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

Many stargazers use starcharts to find their way around. Many smartphone apps, such as Starmap (for iPhone) and Mobile Observatory for Android, can help you learn the constellations.  You can also download Stellarium (a free desktop planetarium program). There are many others available, so just do a search for stargazing software in your browser.

While you’re stargazing, you might see some bright flashes across the sky. In August, it usually means you’re seeing Perseid meteoroids. These are bits of space debris about the size of dust specks or grains of sand. They crash through our atmosphere and vaporize on the way in. The streak you see is a meteor. If a piece of this space stuff hits the ground, it’s then called a meteorite. Perseid meteors are bits of debris left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle as it makes its way through its orbit. Earth’s orbit happens to pass through that cloud of dust grains in August each year. The meteors appear to come from the direction in the sky of the constellation Perseus. The shower peaks early on the morning of August 12th, but you can see its meteors for the next couple of weeks.

I always associate stargazing with summer nights for some reason. Of course, you can do it year-round, as long as you dress warmly for those winter stargazing nights. But, I guess it’s because my earliest memory of stargazing was on a warm spring night, and I just continued during the following summer. It’s a great time to start skygazing, and introduce kids to it, too!