My cat woke me at 3:30 am for no reason and scuttled off. I looked out of the roof window whilst I waited to fall back asleep, and was surprised to see a brilliantly bright star. As my eyes adjusted, I made out a reddish hue.
I was confused because of its location – high in the NE so it couldn’t be Mars, and I didn’t have enough context from surrounding stars to tell which star it might have been. Most of my observations have tended to be SE – S – W, so other than the circumpolar constellations, this was an unfamiliar part of the sky to me.
I stuck my glasses on, stood on the bed and opened the window to get a better view and to find my bearings. Crisp autumnal air greeted me and helped me wake up! 🙂
Orion was rising in the SE. Betelgeuse (red supergiant) was visible, but not as bright as the star I saw through the window. Gemini was low in the E and I think it had a planet in it which at the time I thought might have been Jupiter. It wasn’t particularly bright. And yep, the Great Bear was digging his tail into the NE horizon, and if I craned round high and backwards enough, there was Cassiopeia.
So I knew where I was, but hang on…where was that bright star?
Looking up was difficult because of the angle of the roof window, and as I struggled for better search conditions my wife stirred.
“What on Earth are you doing?”
“I’ve lost a star, a bright red one. I saw it when I was lying down but now I can’t see it outside.”
With her help, I found it.
