Nan at Night by Nancy Hoyt
-Thursday the 26th: Happy Thanksgiving! After you’ve eaten your fill of Turkey, wander outside and let your eyes wander toward the eastern sky. There you will find a curious little constellation shaped like a triangle. This star pattern is named Triangulum. It has only a few moderately bright stars, and only one of those has a proper name. Mothallah – a name that means literally “the triangle” – stands half-way up the eastern sky at nightfall, at the tip of the skinny triangle. The star system Delta Trianguli is also within this small constellation. The brighter of the two stars is similar to the Sun. Like the Sun, it is yellow and it is in the prime of its life.
-Friday the 27th: M33 – a galaxy that is very similar to our own – is within the small faint constellation Triangulum, which is high in the east at nightfall. Through binoculars the galaxy looks like a small fuzzy smudge of light.
-Saturday the 28th: Fifty years ago on November 28th, 1959, physicist Charles Moore Jr. and Navy pilot Malcolm Ross discovered water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus, using infrared detectors connected to a small telescope. They were cruising fifteen miles above Earth’s surface in the Strato-Lab High IV balloon. Ground-based telescopes could not detect the water because water vapor in Earth’s own atmosphere absorbs infrared energy.
-Sunday the 29th: Mars rises in late evening and is high in the southwest at dawn. It looks like a bright orange star, outshining all but a few other planets and stars. As the next few weeks pass by, it rises earlier and earlier each evening and will shine a little brighter.
-Monday the 30th: For stargazers, no time is more spectacular than late fall and early winter, when the evening sky sparkles with bright stars such as Rigel and Betelgeuse in Orion, Aldebaran in Taurus, Capella in Auriga and Sirius and Procyon in Canis Major and Canis Minor.
-Tuesday the 1st: The little dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster stands above the Moon as the sky darkens this evening, with the orange star Aldebaran below the Moon. Aldebaran represents the eye of Taurus, the bull, while the Pleiades represent his shoulder.
-Wednesday the 2nd: The “first” full Moon of December lights up the night tonight. (Yes, there will be a “Blue Moon” on New Years Eve!) Tonight’s full Moon is known as the Full Cold Moon since December is the month when the cold tends to fasten its grip.
-Thursday the 3rd: Mira, the “wonderful” star, in the constellation Cetus, is high in the south during mid to late evening. Mira got its name because it does something wonderful; it periodically disappears and then reappears as the result of a rhythmic expansion and contraction.
This week as you are out and about visiting family and friends for the holiday, take a moment to glance up at the brilliant dark winter sky ablaze with glittering stars almost like diamonds in our cold mountain sky. It is truly breathtaking. Throughout December we have our longest nights of the year so you can easily go out and stargaze well before bedtime. One of my favorite constellations is high in the cold, dark sky, Taurus the Bull. To locate Taurus, first find Capella blazing high in the east-northeast within the star-speckled Milky Way constellation Auriga, the charioteer. Just to the right of Capella about three fist-widths at arm’s length, is slightly fainter Aldebaran, the orange “eye” of the Bull. Aldebaran marks one end of the faint, V-shaped Hyades star cluster, creating the “head” of the bull. The smaller but brighter Pleiades cluster shines above Aldebaran and the Hyades. This asterism is known as the “shoulder” of the bull. The Pleiades have a rich history. They are often referred to as Native American “maidens” known as the “seven sisters,” a name many of us have become familiar with thanks to the Black Oak Casino! “They were also called the “sailing stars” long ago, for early Greek seaman would only set sail when the stars were visible; at other times storms were too likely.” Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote of them, “Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade / Glitter like a swarm of fireflies, tangled in a silver braid.” As you can see, this is definitely a constellation worth searching for. *Sources: Thanks to Star Date magazine, National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky, Starry Night Pro, The Stars by H.A. Rey, stardate.org, Sky Times, stardate.org, Joe Rao and Space.com
