Stargazing 101: How to Enjoy the Night Sky

The transition of winter to spring not only warms our bones and give us a boost with the new life springing up around us, but it’s a great time to learn how to stargazer.

With some of the most recognizable constellations like Orion saying goodbye in the west, new ones are replacing them, including Leo the Lion, Bootes the Charioteer and the best appearance of the Big Dipper in the north.

So here are some real life tips on how to survive under the stars while learning about them.  Always remember, you are connecting with every human who has looked up on the celestial night and wondered why…no one owns the original when it comes to a star or the ancient constellations.

The practical necessities for stargazing are:

1. Star maps -- The heart of stargazing are maps of the unchanging stars and the imagined patterns they make.  You’ll need a road map to the night sky that will be a trusted friend.  Whether a wheeled planisphere (available at most nature museums or some bookstores) or charts from a library book, these tools will help you to become familiar with the constellations and bright stars that reappear for months at a time, year after year.  At www.starmaps.com, you can download and print for free a map with notes on plenty of places in the night sky to visit.  The two popular amateur magazines, Sky & Telescope and Astronomy, always have a monthly centerfold of the sky, and highlight what’s visible.  The magazines also have free websites to see their night sky reports, www.skypublishing.com and www.astronomy.com. Other fabulous resources for amateur astronomers are www.spaceweather.com, www.space.com and www.universetoday.com.

2. Red Flashlight – If you’re going to read and keep your night vision, you need a red light.  A red light is used because it doesn’t affect the eye’s sensors like white light, and you maintain a dilated pupil, allowing maximum night vision.  Use red cellophane on a regular flashlight, or paint the bulb red with fingernail polish.  And there are many battery powered lights with red filters available if you look around hardware and sporting goods.

3. Lounge chair – Oh, yeah.  You want to be comfortable.  Lying down in a comfortable lounge chair settles you in to look around the sky, sometimes concentrating on the right sight, other times the left side.  And you are able to look overhead easily and watch for faint satellites—which are more common than you may think!

4. Dress for night – The dip in night temperature creates a dew point when water in the atmosphere condenses as a liquid on everything.   Dew is the enemy of maps, binoculars and telescopes, which can get quite wet around the 2-5 am coldest part of the night. Putting your maps and gear on a table with an umbrella will keep them dry.  And you might need a light jacket, hoodie or a blanket to keep the chill of you.

MarQ photo

5. Computer planetarium program – It’s best to prepare for your night observing by reading your maps and looking at a desk top planetarium show of the night. The best planetarium program out there is the free Stellarium sky program.  Download it in less than 5 minutes at www.stellarium.com.  Play with all the features, in a few sessions of an hour or so you’ll have the program under your control.  You can go to any date in history—like your birthday or 2,000 years ago—and see what the night sky looked like!

6. Binoculars before a Telescope – There is a lot to see with just the naked eyes.  But adding binoculars of any kind will reveal fainter stars that might not be on basic beginner maps.  With binoculars, you can also begin to see some of the faint, fuzzy spots of light that are galaxies and nebula, as well as resolve some of the larger star clusters.  You don’t have to buy a telescope right away to enjoy the night sky, but when you do buy one, you want to get the biggest and best you can afford.

7. Snacks, beverages and the radio – Unless you’re stargazing with a friend, you’re going to get a little lonely—though neighborhood sounds will keep you alert.  A radio for music or late night talk shows will help pass the time.  And you probably will want to sip on a beverage and enjoy some snacks.  Get them on hand early in the observing so you don’t go inside and ruin your night vision.  And take periods of time walking around between lying in the lounge chair to keep you alert and your body awake.

8. Give Time some Time.   Stargazing is like an athletic event in some ways…the longer it goes on the more invigorated you get into what you’re doing. As your eyes adjust to the dark and stay that way after about 30 minutes, you start seeing the sky (as well as your night neighborhood) in ways you never imagined.  After about an hour of continuous looking around the sky, you’ve seen things like airplanes, satellites and maybe some strange lights!  And you’ve gotten used to looking at your star maps, then up at the constellations and bright stars that are your destination to find and remember. If you get two hours under your belt, well, you will find the night sky grip you.  In that amount of time, the stars you began looking at have shifted to the west and in the east there are new constellations and stars to see (maybe a planet or two) in the east.  It’s the continually changing parade of constellations and their treasures that keep you stargazing for hours.

MarQ photo

9. Make Notes and Photos – Keeping an observing log of your own “discoveries” is fun, and duplicates the steps all stargazers—amateur and professional—have taken in their quest for knowledge about the Universe.  And with today’s digital cameras with high sensitivity, it is easy after a little practice to photograph constellations and the Moon among the stars.

10. Read, read, and read – There is always something new being found among the stars above.  The libraries are full of great books that document the history of astronomy as well as how-to observe with and without telescopes.  And the Internet is an amazing resource for everything astronomical—just Google subjects at your heart’s desire.  And, of course, keep up weekly with what’s up in outer space by reading Stargazer MarQ!

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF MOON TUES APRIL 15

       The wee morning of April 15^th will have some excitement in the sky worth getting up for…a total eclipse of the Moon.

       The partial eclipse action begins at 1:58 am on that Tuesday morning when the first “bite” is taken out of the Full Moon, signaling our celestial neighbor is passing through the shadow Earth casts into space.

The total eclipse technically starts at 3:06 am when the entire Moon will be covered up inside our shadow, and remain so as it moves for the next 89 minutes. 

At 4:25 am, the total eclipse ends, the silvery light of the Moon beginning to be revealed again until the partial eclipse phase ends at 5:32 am.

LUNAR ECLIPSE IN THE PLEIADES 2003  Photo by MARQ

       During the totality phase, the bright Moon is rendered dark, and its exact hue is always unpredictable—from smoky dark to copper red.  This color is caused by the refraction of light in Earth’s atmosphere.  This coloration is given a scale of tints called the Danjon Scale, which you can judge for yourself.

       What is fascinating to watch are the stars that reappear as the bright moonlight is dimmed by Earth’s shadow. The starry background is centered with the Moon in Virgo, near the bright star Spica, with red Mars above and to the east, Saturn in Libra.

       The Moon eclipse technically begins when the orb touches the fainter cone of light the Earth throws into space, the penumbra, at 12:52 am.  That’s hard to detect with the naked eye, but a subtle change in the lunar brightness will lead to the partial eclipse phase when the Moon touches the Earth’s dark umbra beginning at 3:06 am.

       An eclipse of the Moon is the opposite of an eclipse of the Sun, when the Moon passes in front of our star.  Both celestial events happen twice a year somewhere in the world.  And finally, our North America gets to see the lights go out on the Moon—for the first time since 2008. 

Photo by MarQ

       A lunar eclipse is a great photo opportunity, even with a good “point-and-shoot” that has a long telephoto zoom.  Use a tripod, crank up the ISO sensitivity of the camera to 1,000 or more, and even use self timer to eliminate camera shake on exposures longer than 1/30^th of a second.   With the free digital images, take lots and spot check them.  But don’t delete any in the field; wait to see any astrophotos on a computer because even mistakes can be creative. 

       The eclipse of the Moon, or Sun, is always an exciting event in our modern world.  So imagine the near hysteria of civilizations hundreds and thousands of years ago, who didn’t understand the celestial motions creating the wonder.

Many ancient cultures figured out that the Moon is repeating its eclipse times and locations every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours.  This period is called a Saros. So after each lunar eclipse, in 6,585.32 days, the alignment of the Earth between the Sun and Moon will be exactly the same. Incredibly, the ancient Babylonians in about 200 BC figured this out and maybe the Egyptians a thousand years earlier. The April 15^th lunar eclipse is “member 56 of 75 of Saros 122,” which began on Aug. 14, 122 AD and ends Oct. 29, 2338, when a totally new Saros cycle begins. 

This April 15, 2014 lunar eclipse is also the Full Moon that determines the date for Easter. The formula for determining Easter Sunday is: Easter is the first Sunday after the first Full Moon that occurs after the Vernal Equinox.  Easter is Sunday April 20 because the Full Moon on April 15^th was the first full phase after the March 20^th first day of Spring.   

So much mythology and god worshiping has been associated with the near mystical change of the Moon for a brief time.  Human sacrifices, initiations and secret meetings all are part of the folklore and legends of lunar eclipses. Here are a few:

·      Ancient China cultures believed a three-legged frog was eating the Moon, and the Aztecs thought it was being devoured by a jaguar. Other cultures have all kinds of other animals eating the Moon, than sometimes vomiting it back up.

·      A lunar eclipse proceeded the fall of Constantinople May 29, 1453. The blow to Christendom as the Ottoman Empire sacked the famous sea port lasted until World War I.

·      A 2004 lunar eclipse also fell on the night that the Boston Red Sox won their first Baseball World Series since 1918, breaking a losing streak that started with the trade of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.  That eclipse was even seen by fans as totality was from 10:23 to 11:45 pm.  

·      Christopher Columbus saved his live and that of his crew when he scared the aggressive natives of Jamaica by making the Moon “disappear” on March 1, 1504.  The famous explorer knew a lot of astronomy, and was aware of the predictions of lunar and solar eclipses.

During this April 15^th middle-of-the-night lunar eclipse there will be the bright, bluish star Spica below the Moon, and to the far right will be the red planet Mars.  The color of Mars and the potentially reddish total eclipsed Moon would be a nice contrast around the 4 am hour.

The color during totality from 3:08—4:23 am will be determined by the Earth’s atmosphere, not anything to do with the Moon itself.  Ash from volcanoes, man-made pollution and forest fires put particulates in the air, and when the sunlight filters through it, there can be tints of colors. 

   There is even a brightness scale proposed by Andre-Louis Danjon in 1921.  Bearing his name, the Danjon Scale is denoted by an L:

L=0 Very dark eclipse with the Moon almost invisible

L=1 Dark eclipse that is gray or brownish in color

L=2 Deep red or rust-colored eclipse.  Very dark central shadow with brighter edges

L=3 Brick-red eclipse, sometimes with a yellowish rim

L=4 Very bright copper red or orange eclipse, and there can be a bright, bluish rim.

Set the alarm clock, loose a little sleep, and go out under the Moon and watch its light be dimmed as it slips in and out of Earth’s shadow.

You can watch the celestial action from the comfort a lawn chair with a pair of binoculars and some snacks. Can determine your own “L” brightness and color on the Danjon Scale, and even take some great photos of the lunar eclipse.  Then compare your results the next day with those posted on such websites as Space Weather, Space, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, and Universe Today.

We’ll have another total eclipse on Oct. 8, but totality begins when the Moon is setting in the morning sky.  So this is a special lunar eclipse that will worth losing sleep over.