Binoculars, telescopes will help you enjoy the night sky

This week there should be plenty of time to stargaze, although clouds in the sky will prevent faint objects from being detected easily. Look for a dark area, away from city lights. I know those are becoming far too rare, but our Valley skies are darker than some other areas and some good constellation finding can happen.

Be sure to use mosquito repellent to prevent you from becoming a blood donor to the next generation of these pests. If you have that amber Listerine it makes a great repellent. You might also want to install a bat house near your home or add an opossum to your pet menagerie. They love mosquitoes.

This time of the month is better for star gazing while the Moon is in its waxing crescent phase. At sunset on the 13th Mars will be near the Moon. Look for the slightly ruddy planet gleaming softly in the western sky. Venus will be much brighter than Mars.

Scorpius is emerging from the east now and it is a good time to use that telescope to share M4, the gorgeous globular cluster that rests near Antares. Set your scope on Antares, and look west. They both will fit in your field of view.

Binoculars may enable you to locate emission nebulae in the area as well. Antares is a good jumping off point for exploring. Scorpius houses several other treasures, including the Northern Jewel Box open cluster and the Cat’s Paw nebula.

In the same region of sky, just above Scorpius, Ophiuchus stretches out and up, much like a 1950’s electric percolator that every June bride of that era hoped she would receive. A percolator was a sign you had reached that coveted marital state of wedded bliss with Mr. Right.

The percolator in the sky represents medicine and physicians. Æsculapius/ Ophiuchus (Oh-FEE-uh-kus) was the ancient physician who discovered the secret of Life, which seriously enraged Pluto.

This week the South Texas Astronomical Society is hosting some astronomy lessons for area persons who want to learn more about astronomy activities. The hope is that when the group is presenting programs at the Lunadas and Farmers’ Market the participants will be part of the fun during the summer months. If you missed the May Lunada in Brownsville, it was a fantastic rocket-blasting event.

The Resaca de la Palma state park is also re-starting the night hike. This will be severely limited in the number of registered participants due to precautions related to you-know-what.

I realize school just dismissed for the summer but there still may be a student who plans ahead to the time when the traditional school district science fairs will once again be held. Perhaps capturing the data related to the location of the planets or particular star patterns or the lunar phases would be of interest.

There are plenty of ideas related to astronomy, including the number of stars that can be seen during the course of a specific time period. There is a scale of darkness in the sky, magnitude of stars, plus the location of planets, the phases of the moon and location of the sun at sunrise/sunset

Official summertime will be on June 21and a great opportunity to note the position that the Sun rises in comparison to a fixed object on the eastern horizon or where it sets on the western horizon.

A tall palm tree, street light, cell phone tower, or even the expressway overpass can lead to some interesting conclusions about solar motion that was noted and celebrated by ancient cultures around the planet.

Until next week, KLU.