February 2012

February is always the ‘magic’ month for astronomers. If you have never looked at the sky before, go out now because you are in for a real treat. Look due south, and there he is, Orion the great Hunter, in all his magnificence. You cannot miss him, he is so large he takes up almost all the southern sky.

Wow what a sight he makes in the night sky. Remember that his right shoulder star is a Red giant and it’s called Betelgeuse. Yes that’s the one, that’s where Hollywood got the name from. Look closely at it and you will see it is quite orange. A Red giant is an old dying star and will one day become a Supernova, the greatest visible outpouring of energy in the Universe. It’s a huge star, many tens of times greater than our Earth, blowing itself to pieces. That is the moment when all our heavy elements are made. It is a sobering thought that every single atom in all of us was once made in the cosmic furnaces inside a dying star.

Take a line through his belt upwards and to your right and you will see another Red star. This one is called Aldebaran, it is in small scattering of stars called the Hyades. They are all the same age and and were made in the same original massive cloud of hydrogen. Again in people terms they would be teenagers. Aldebaran is the ‘eye’ of Taurus the Bull. Keep going on the same line and you will bump into the Pleiades, another small group of young stars. And again in people terms, they would be big toddlers.

Now look to the West, your right, you will see a very bright ‘star’, this is the planet Jupiter. Just below is another really bright ‘star’ and this is Venus and from the 24th to the 27th you can watch as the crescent moon passes past them both. ‘Slightly exciting, to have one moon and two planets in the same bit of sky I think.

Something else a bit exciting is the opportunity to see the Northern lights. As the activity on the Sun continues to increase so more energy is pushed towards us, giving the chance to see green curtains or lights in the Northern sky. It depends upon just how energetic it is. The more the energy, the greater the chances of seeing it in our southern latitudes. Do keep looking whilst we have the dark nights. About ten years ago I saw them from Cambridge and they lasted for about three hours.

So, just as last month the February sky is filled with stars of all ages. It is fascinating to see the act of creation spread out in the skies above our heads.

March is not quite as exciting, but Orion will still be there, and it will still be with us ‘till the middle of April.

January 2012

A Happy New Year to everyone. Did Santa bring any of you a telescope or binoculars. I hope so and I hope you are having fun with them, if you are having difficulties however give me a call and I will try to help you to get them set up properly.

January is the big time of the year for astronomers. Orion the great Hunter, is rising in all his magnificence. You cannot miss him he is so large that he takes up almost all the Southern sky. Look to the left of south and you will see the four big stars, one on each shoulder and the one on each knee. He has a spear in his right hand and a great shield held aloft in his left, you can see the arc of stars which make his shield.

But before we look at Orion properly, look just to the right and you will see a fuzzy patch, if you choose a really dark place to view from and wait for your eyes to become accustomed the dark, you will be able to make out six or seven stars in a cluster. This is the Pleiades, seven stars named after their mother Pleione. (Yup, bad old Zeus at his old wicked habits again!) Well, she had seven babies altogether, the seven sisters or Pleiades. See if you can see more than five without binoculars If you are younger than about 25yrs. you should be able to make out at least five. The Japanese word for the Pleiades is Subaru, yes, just like the car, see if you can find one in the car park and look at its badge – a stylised picture of the Pleiades.- not a lot of people know that!

Back to Orion,as befits the great hunter he has a magnificent belt of three stars below which you can see a misty patch which is his hunter’s sword. That misty patch is a place where new stars are being born. In people terms they would be just a few days old.

Do you remember that the star on his right shoulder is a red giant and it’s called Betelgeuse. Yes that’s the one, that’s where Hollywood got the name from. It is actually a corruption from the Arabic- Ibt- al Jauzah which was later itself corrupted to Bet- al- geuze and simply means curve or armpit.

Look closely at it and you will see it is quite orange, that’s why we call it a Red Giant. A Red giant is an old dying star and will one day become a Supernova, the greatest visible outpouring of energy in the Universe. We will look again at Orion next month, there is so much more to see.

Jupiter is still with us and Venus is rising just under the moon. What a pretty sight.

December 2011

Christmas is coming, but did you know that if you were standing in Great Yarmouth and looking east 2011 yrs. ago at about six or seven o’clock in the evening, you would have seen the star of Bethlehem ………… Not a lot of people know that !!

Yes Christmas is coming, to an Astronomer this means the winter solstice or the moment when the sun is at its lowest point in the sky. This month it will happen on the 22nd.so by the time you are eating your turkeys we will already be heading into the Spring again!

You will be able to see the Andromeda galaxy straight over head now. Remember its Messier no.is M31 (which I called M32 last month) it does have a small companion galaxy M32, just below the centre but it is almost impossible to see this in binoculars.

M31 is about 2.5 million lyrs. away, this means that the light from this galaxy has taken 2.5 million yrs. to get to your eye, so, the actual object is now 5million yrs.old! This means that it was formed when the Universe was just over half its present age.

Look to the left and the Pleiades is high in the sky. In mythology they are the seven daughters of a union between Zeus and Pleione. These stars formed only 200 million years ago (not lyrs.) so they were not quite in the sky when the early dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The Geminid meteor shower is on the 13/14 but an almost full moon will make seeing all but impossible.

Jupiter is still high in the sky with Saturn and Mars just below the horizon but getting ready for next months showing. However Venus is just above the horizon this month. It should be directly below the new moon.

I do hope some of you get telescopes or binoculars for Christmas. Remember, these are scientific instruments not toys and you will get the quality you pay for!

Finally this year, we will be re-opening the Wentworth telescopes (Nr Ely), we hope for Dec 7th as it will be open on Wednesday evenings from 19.30 onwards.

Merry Christmas to you all ,see you in the New Year.