Hubble European Space Agency Credit: Akira Fujii, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The “Winter Triangle” marked by Procyon (upper left), Betelgeuse (upper right) and Sirius (bottom).
3 facets of astronomy keep me hooked!
- Stepping outside, looking up, seeing the beauty and gasping WHOAAARRGHH!!
- Using gear to look at those things with better visuals (and say WHOAAARRGHH!!)
- Understanding the science behind what I’m looking at (and saying WHOAAARRGHH!! Really???!!)
Observing
Every year, usually around November / December, I make a ‘new start’ with observing. This is when the ecliptic is high and many constellations are high and bright.
I step outside as often as I can. I repeat my observations to get them bedded into my brain, but I also explore and see new things because the night sky moves to the west each successive night.
My current viewing area is cursed with buildings, neighbour’s outside lights and (my own) trees. I’m left with a very limited view to the SE; mostly I can see overhead and SW to N.
(Actually it’s slightly extended to the south if I include my friend’s garden. We sit together chatting and marvelling at God’s creations whilst images are downloading from his seastar S50 smart telescope!)
As for my own equipment…
Setting up an equatorially mounted 10 inch reflector is a pain and hardly worth the effort with my limited view, so I usually use a 120 mm refractor which I can move around much more easily. The drawback of this scope is the (dreadful) alt-azimuth mount which makes overhead views troublesome.
The hassle of setting up, limited mobility, and just plain old taking my glasses on and off to use my binoculars is frustrating. So my observing grinds to a halt, usually around Spring.
I’ve got a different plan for this year!
Observe and study
When I see a deep sky object in the eyepiece of my scope, I’m rarely impressed with the absolute visual experience. The colour receptors in the human eye need a lot of light to function, and that’s in scarce supply at night! Result – things appear in grey scale. A small, grey, fuzzy blob.
Except I am impressed!
I know what that fuzzy blob is and what it represents! It’s a galaxy with billions of stars gravitationally bound to each other, or a nebulous cloud of intergalactic star-forming gas, or perhaps the remnants of a supernova explosion! Somehow, knowing something about that tiny fuzzy patch makes it an incredible viewing experience!
Just imagine – the only thing between you and a raging nuclear stellar reaction with enough power to hurl photons through billions of kilometers of space is an eyepiece!
Some people call it “armchair astronomy” – sitting in the comfort of your lounge and reading about stuff instead of actually going out and seeing it.
So my poor visuals (and failing eyesight!) will be coupled with a knowledge of the story of the stars. I won’t just see the blue and yellow binary star system of Albireo, I’ll know one of its components (the brighter yellow one) is in itself a trinary star system (in this case a binary with an orbiting low mass star). And if I wait just shy of 4 million years, it will become the brightest star in the sky! Source: wikipedia.
Let’s see (and know! 😉 ) how it goes!
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Albireo
Blue and yellow binary star system of Albireo. The brighter yellow star is a trinary star system (in this case a binary with an orbiting low mass star). In just shy of 4 million years, it will become the brightest star in the sky! Source: wikipedia.
Procyon
12 light years distant from Earth, Procyon is another ‘close’ neighbour to us. Like Sirius, it has a white dwarf binary star which orbits at a distance about the same as the Sun to Uranus. Source: wikipedia.
Betelgeuse
A red supergiant about 500 light years away, with a radius around 700 times that of the sun, but only 15 times its mass. It’s 10 million years old and expected to go supernova within 100,000 years – astronomically speaking this is fairly soon! Source: wikipedia.
Sirius
Brightest star in the northern hemisphere (because it’s both bright and close (9 light years)). In 60,000 years it will become the southern pole star due to the Earth’s axial precession and Sirius’ own motion. It has a white dwarf binary companion (“Sirius B”) which was originally more massive than Sirius (A) and evolved into a red giant before collapsing into a white dwarf. Source: wikipedia.