AUTUMN SKIES DELIGHT FOR SENSES

       The autumn skies are one of the starry delights of the year, and the last time you might spend night time outdoors.

       Let’s face it, the days are numbered that you’ll be outside after dark as cold weather and busy holidays keep most of us inside when the day turns to night.

       And we don’t want to think about those January and February cold nights, when there are dark skies at 6 pm but not much gumption to brave the usually harsh weather.

       So make some time every week for an hour or so stargazing by just sitting outdoors in comfortable clothes on a comfy recliner and allowing your eyes to adapt to the night.

       I guarantee it won’t be wasted time.  I think you might be recharged a little bit, and for sure you’ll witness with eyes and ears a new perspective on your neighborhood.

       Most of us will be battling the security lights of the neighbors, so try and block yourself from annoying stray light.  Start relaxing outside in the deep twilight and see all kinds of nature stirring about as the stars come out to play with you

Your eyes take about 15 minutes away from white light to allow the pupils to open wider and allow a dramatically better night vision.  The human eye isn’t sensitive to red light, and flashlights with a red bulb or cellophane are what’s needed to look at a star map or equipment.  As your eyes open wide like an owl, use your ears to hear the night world around us coming alive. 

       You’ll hear crickets and other insects in their nocturnal cacophony, then a few bats will dart by, snagging flying insects that buzzed by you earlier. You realize car tires make a sound of their own on the streets, and somewhere overhead a propeller plane is heading to a twilight landing. A dog barks, quarreling cats howl and in the distance a train’s whistle moans. 

       All of a sudden, it’s dark.

       Even if the Moon is high and the lunar light drowns out the stars, there will always be a few dozen of the brightest to shine through. And maybe a planet or two. 

       Getting familiar with the night sky is like meeting neighbors that change as you drive down a road that repeats every 12 months. Seeing the Great Square of Pegasus in the northeast this Autumn time of the year is like seeing an old friend you haven’t talked to since February when the celestial horse was setting in the west.

A star chart is essential and fun to use when beginning to get curious about which star is which and the starry outlines of the constellations. A “planisphere” is a star wheel that can be moved to show you the star patterns at any date and time, and they can be found at most book stores. Libraries will have several books on constellations, and free sky charts are on the Internet, like StarMaps.com.

Hey! That 1965 edition of the New Encyclopedia Britannica you inherited from your parents—or snagged cheaply at a yard sale—will no doubt have a star chart for the North and South Hemispheres of Earth.  Even some world atlases will have star charts.  It doesn’t matter how old your star chart is, the constellations haven’t changed in millions of years, only the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets change.

To know the night sky is truly a rewarding experience that never gets old. There is so much to learn…and so little time. You can’t stargaze when the Moon is bright for a week or so around full phase, and then you have plenty of cloudy nights. 

Then everyone has a personal life that has lots of evening commitments.  So in reality, you might be lucky to seriously stargaze just five or six times a month.

Before you know it, the night sky has changed its characters, the constellations you were learning are setting, and new ones are rising in the east. After a season or two of steady stargazing, you’ll come to learn the rhythm of our Earth’s journey around our favorite star, the Sun. The rewards will be something you only measure inside your mind.

This October 2014 we are treated to an encounter by two stellar objects the ancient stargazers would have feasted about—the conjunction of Mars and its antithesis, Antares. 

Literally “not Ares,” the Greek god of war, this giant, old red star has few rivals in our nearby Universe. Mars is the Roman god of war, and that name has stuck to this red, wandering “star” that all cultures recognized as blood, a warrior or omen for conflict. 

This Autumn 2014, Mars is above and to the left (west) of Antares, which is the heart of Scorpius, a giant fish hook of stars that curve to the southern horizon. This rather small constellation (in the Zodiac, only Cancer is smaller) looks like its namesake, the stinger lying near the center of the Milky Way.  Mars will be visiting the Milky Way this fall as it goes from Scorpius than into the feet of the Snake Handler, Ophiuchus (the unrecognized 13^th constellation of the Zodiac) and into Sagittarius by mid-November.

Milky Way photo by MarQ

The 2014 conjunction of Mars with Antares happens after summertime of watching Mars move back and forth in Virgo between planet Saturn and bright star Spica, This would be huge news in the astrology-fueled world of the ancient stargazers. Five thousand years ago, the plains of Mesopotamia and the valleys of Babylon would be abuzz trying to figure out the intent of the gods as the celestial scene played out over months.  Being the “Chief Astrologer” to a King would be a great gig in the ancient world—as long as your stargazing predictions came true! 

Both Mars and Antares have nearly the identical hue of red and brightness. Mars gets significantly brighter when near Earth every two years or so. But the similarities stop at the naked eye threshold when seeing these two red “stars. 

       They are two physically interesting worlds.  Antares is a super giant star, nearly 500 million miles in diameter, so huge it would swallow up the orbit of Mars if it replaced our Sun. It also has a bluish companion star orbiting it, easily seen in a telescope. Antares is 325 Light Years away, meaning the light we see tonight left this giant, dying star in 1689…the year Peter the Great became Czar of Russia!

       That’s a concept that ancient astronomers would never grasp—that we actually look back in time because the stars are so far away.  Even light traveling at 186,000 miles a second—6 trillion miles in a year—takes years to traverse the distance to even the closest stars to our Sun. 

       So take advantage of these mild Autumn nights that have so many starry friends awaiting your acquaintance. Look up and imagine each starry point as a world of its own, probably with several planets and maybe a companion star orbiting it.

       And just maybe you’ll find it so enjoyable that you’ll continue stargazing though the Winter and get in rhythm with the seasonal stars.  You won’t be disappointed.