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'Casts, astrocast.tv, light pollution, our night sky, stargazing

July Stargazing and Dark Skies

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What’s Up Now

While you’re still digesting the last post about galaxies, let’s do a little stargazing. It’s one of the few free things you can go out and do without a lot of equipment. In fact, all you need are your eyes, some warm clothes, a place away from bright lights, and the willingness to simply gaze at the sky awhile.

I do a monthly skygazing video for Astrocast.TV, and you can watch it here to find out the highlights of July’s observing.

 

 

Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way Galaxy as seen from a wildness area in West Virginia in a time-exposure photograph. Because of light pollution, many people have never seen this sight. http://www.ForestWander.com [CC-BY-SA-3.0-ul], via Wikimedia Commons
Lately at our house, we’ve been getting a lot of stormy weather late in the afternoon into the evenings. So, the stargazing hasn’t been great. But, when it IS clear, especially right after sunset, I like to look at Venus, hanging low on the western horizon for a little while after the Sun goes down. After it gets plenty dark, then I look for the Big Dipper, which is starting to dip lower into the northern sky as the year progresses. If it’s really dark out, and I live in a fairly dark-sky area, I look for the Milky Way. It’s a bit easier to see late at night, since it will be running almost right overhead, from the north-northeast to the south. It kind of looks like a cloud, but it’s really a huge agglomeration of stars, gas, and dust—our galaxy, as seen from the inside.

“Losing the Dark”

The Milky Way, along with a great many other celestial sights that we used to take for granted seeing is largely disappearing from our view due to excessive light pollution, particularly in the cities. Even where I  live, light pollution isn’t completely cut off by the mountains that lie between me and the nearest big city. Still, I can see the Milky Way, and I think that everybody should be able to see it.

This is why I got involved with the International Dark-Sky Association as a member, and now I serve as a member of the group’s Education Committee. I also spent last year working on a video for the group that can be used by anybody who wants to reach out and help mitigate problems of light pollution. It’s available free of charge in “flatscreen” HD format from the IDA, and also as a free download for most fulldome and all classic planetariums from Loch Ness Productions.

The IDA is the premier light-pollution mitigation advocacy group in the world. Their Web page is chock full of useful tips and information about helping to ease the scourge of light pollution. Their goal is to advocate for wise use of lighting, and many communities are starting to see the advantages of wisely deploying lighting, staying safe, but preserving the health of humans and wildlife as well as returning our starry skies to us.

Stargazing is a sublime pleasure in life. People have been doing it throughout history, and astronomy was our first science. In a very real sense, if and when you go stargazing this summer, you will be extending our historical interest in the skies. Plus, it’s just an inspiring and interesting thing to do. So, get out there and check out the skies!  And, come back and share your experiences in comments!  (I moderate comments, but I check every day and I will share any useful and germane comments you write.)

'Casts, amateur astronomy, astrocast.tv, astronomy, Orion, Orion Nebula, our night sky, star charts, stargazing

Stargazing in February

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It CAN Be Done!

The first month of the year is behind us now, leaving 11 more months of sky sights to check out. February for many northern hemisphere observers is still the winter season, so of course you have to dress warmly unless you live in relative sunny climes. For southern hemisphere viewers it’s late summer, so the dress code’s a little different. No matter what you wear, though, there ARE some great sky sights to check out.  I outline a few of them in my monthly video called Our Night Sky, produced for Astrocast.TV. You watch it here.

A chart view of Orion, showing Betelgeuse in the shoulder of the giant. The three belt stars run through the middle, and just below them is the Orion Nebula starbirth region. Courtesy Zwergelstern on Wikimedia Commons.

I always come back to Orion for my sky gazing this time of year. It’s just a gorgeous star pattern.  What I like most about Orion: it provides a lot of interesting stuff to look at. There’s Betelgeuse, for example. It’s a red supergiant star in his shoulder, and it’s likely to pop off as a supernova anytime (well, “anytime” is relative — it could be in the next million years).

Notice the three stars across Orion’s middle. Just beneath them lies a spectacular star birth region called the Orion Nebula. It’s about 1,500 light-years away from us and it just blazes with hot young stars, set among clouds of gas and dust that are still forming stars.

I’ve been stargazing since I was a kid. I didn’t always know what I was looking at, but over time (and using star charts and taking a few astronomy classes and teaching in the planetarium) I got to know the sky pretty well. You don’t have to do all that to explore the sky. You can start very simply: take it one constellation at a time.  Look at it with your naked eye, then scan it with binoculars or a small telescope.  Chances are, you’ll find something cool and interesting to check out each time you look.

People often ask me what star charts they should get. I always recommend they check out Sky&Telescope.com or Astronomy.com. Those two sites (and their associated magazines) have very useful star charts that you can customize for your location. If you have an iPhone or an iPad, you can get a wonderful app called Starmap. (Disclosure: I’m working on a project for these guys, but I was using their sky maps (free of charge on their site) long before they contacted me to work with them.)  I also very much like Skymaps, which provides both northern and southern hemisphere charts.  I also wrote about some good astronomy books and apps just before Christmas — check them out  here and here if you’re looking for some more extensive, tree-based information about where to look during your sky gazing sessions.  Now, get out there and check out the sky!  (Just be sure and dress for the weather!)