I hope you got to see some meteorites sometime during the weekend. I was visiting family in San Antonio and saw a few faint ones streaking across the sky from their backyard. Even if you didn’t, the Scorpion was really beautiful suspended against the velvet dark southern sky, with the Little Teapot asterism tagging along behind it.
I hope you will take the kids out to see these patterns in the sky so they can begin to realize that patterns are definitely present in science as well as in reading and math. Plus, with the New Moon phase occurring on the 8th this week will mean a good opportunity to watch the changing phase of the Moon during the month.
If you stand facing north, left shoulder to the west, sunset, and your right to the east, sunrise, then you have a great view of Cassiopeia and her consort, Cepheus in the NNE. Cassiopeia looks like a letter W or M and Cepheus looks like a crooked little house with the roof peak to the left and slightly down.
There are two stars in Cassiopeia that lead you to the North Star, Polaris, just as the two pointer stars of the Big Dipper asterism when it is high in the sky.
These northern-sky-region star patterns are called circumpolar due to the fact that Earth’s rotation is in a west-to-east motion so the stars in the north appear to rotate counterclockwise throughout the night.
When you finish looking north turn around to Scorpius again and let your eyes drift upwards toward the zenith and see if you can pick out an elongated pentagonal shape with a few stars scattered to the east and the west of it. This pattern of stars is called Ophiuchus (O-fee-U-kus), the physician.
The old Turkish coffeepot shape of Ophiuchus above Scorpio stretches across the southern expanse of sky from Sagittarius to nearly Corona Borealis. Consisting of the Physician and the Serpent, this is a massive constellation combination has double “spouts” extending from the base area that form Serpens, the serpent cut in half by Ophiuchus’ hoe.
Look into the high western sky area to locate the curving U shape of Corona Borealis between the zenith and Arcturus in Boötes. If you aren’t sure about where Arcturus is, remember to look for the Big Dipper in the N, and then follow the “arc to Arcturus”. Boötes looks somewhat like a bent kite.
In the region between Scorpius and Virgo is a much broader kite shape of Libra. In ancient times Libra’s stars were considered to be part of Scorpio, but astronomers arbitrarily decided to separate them into two constellations.
Near the zenith, look for a small trapezoid which is Lyra, (Leer-a) the Lyre. With Vega (pronounced in Latin,VEE-ga- it isn’t pronounced Vay-ga, except in south Texas) at the apex, if you have access to a good telescope, look for M57 hiding at the base of the tilted trapezoid. M 57 is the exquisite Ring Nebula.
Of course, seeing M57 means access to a telescope. Check with the Resaca de Las Palmas State Park about their third Friday of the month night hike. Attendance is still limited but possible.
Until next week, do let some stars get in your eyes.
