Tag: venus

Upstate New York Stargazing – May, 2017

Author's Note: The "Upstate New York Stargazing" series ran on the newyorkupstate.com and syracuse.com websites (and limited use in-print) from 2016 to 2018. For the full list of articles, see the Upstate New York Stargazing page.

Upstate NY Stargazing in May: A meteor shower and preparations for the solar eclipse

The transit of Venus across the Sun on June 5/6, 2012. By NASA/SDO, AIA.

Updated: May. 01, 2017, 12:00 p.m. | Published: May. 01, 2017, 11:00 a.m.

Special to nyup.com

By Damian Allis | Contributing writer

Every once in a while, New York and most of the rest of the U.S. is treated to some significant daytime astronomical phenomenon. As you might imagine, this only occurs when some object attempts to compete with the Sun for attention – and this only occurs when something big gets between the Sun and ourselves.

Within the past decade, we've had the good fortune of being able to see Venus (in 2012) and Mercury (in 2016) transit, or travel across the face of, the Sun using solar-safe astronomy equipment. The 2012 Venus transit held in downtown Syracuse even drew several hundred people to Armory Square.

On Aug. 21, the continental U.S. is going to be witness to a total solar eclipse – an event that hasn't happened for us since 1979. While New York will not experience complete coverage of the Sun, northern-most New Yorkers will experience about 70 percent coverage, while southern-most New Yorkers will just barely approach 80 percent. It is a fair bet that every active astronomy club in New York will be hosting an observing session with solar-safe equipment on the 21st or will be hosting a lecture of some kind in the days leading up to the eclipse.

If you haven't yet done so, mark Aug. 21 in your calendar and plan to call in sick that afternoon. We will address solar-safe observing and why such eclipses don't happen more regularly as the event approaches. For those already excited and looking for more information, check out eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html, greatamericaneclipse.com, or eclipse2017.org.

May lectures and observing opportunities

New York has a number of astronomers, astronomy clubs, and observatories that host public sessions throughout the year. Announced sessions from several respondent NY astronomy organizations are provided below for May. As wind and cloud cover are always factors when observing, please check the provided contact information and/or email the groups a day-or-so before an announced session, as some groups will also schedule weather-alternate dates. Also use the contact info for directions and to check on any applicable event or parking fees.

Astronomy Events Calendar

OrganizerLocationEventDateTimeContact Info
Adirondack Public ObservatoryTupper LakePublic Star GazingMay 58:30 PMemail, website
Adirondack Public ObservatoryTupper LakePublic Star GazingMay 198:30 PMemail, website
Albany Area Amateur Astronomers & Dudley ObservatorySchenectadySenior Science DayMay 13:00 – 4:00 PMemail, website
Albany Area Amateur Astronomers & Dudley ObservatorySchenectadyNight Sky AdventureMay 168:00 – 9:30 PMemail, website
Albany Area Amateur Astronomers & Dudley ObservatorySchenectadyAAAA MeetingsMay 187:30 – 9:00 PMemail, website
Albany Area Amateur Astronomers & Dudley ObservatorySchenectadyOctagon Barn Star Party & LectureMay 198:00 – 10:00 PMemail, website
Astronomy Section, Rochester Academy of ScienceRochesterASRAS Meeting & LectureMay 57:30 – 9:30 PMemail, website
Astronomy Section, Rochester Academy of ScienceRochesterObserving At The StrasenburghMay 68:30 PMJim S., 585-703-9876
Astronomy Section, Rochester Academy of ScienceRochesterObserving At The StrasenburghMay 138:30 PMJim S., 585-703-9876
Astronomy Section, Rochester Academy of ScienceRochesterObserving At The StrasenburghMay 208:30 PMJim S., 585-703-9876
Astronomy Section, Rochester Academy of ScienceRochesterObserving At The StrasenburghMay 278:30 PMJim S., 585-703-9876
Baltimore WoodsMarcellusSpring ConstellationsMay 198:30 – 10:30 PMemail, website
Kopernik Observatory & Science CenterVestalKAS Monthly MeetingMay 37:00 – 9:00 PMemail, website
Kopernik Observatory & Science CenterVestalFriday Night Lecture & ObservingMay 57:00 – 10:00 PMemail, website
Kopernik Observatory & Science CenterVestalFriday Night Lecture & ObservingMay 128:00 – 10:00 PMemail, website
Kopernik Observatory & Science CenterVestalFriday Night Lecture & ObservingMay 198:00 – 10:00 PMemail, website
Kopernik Observatory & Science CenterVestalFriday Night Lecture & ObservingMay 268:00 – 10:00 PMemail, website
Mohawk Valley Astronomical SocietyWatervillePublic Stargazing @ New Hartford Sherrill Brook ParkMay 209:00 PM – 12:00 AMemail, website

Lunar Phases

New:First Quarter:Full:Third Quarter:New:
Apr. 26, 8:16 AMMay 2, 10:46 PMMay 10, 5:42 PMMay 18, 8:32 PMMay 25, 3:44 PM

The Moon's increasing brightness as Full Moon approaches washes out fainter stars, random meteors, and other celestial objects – this is bad for most observing, but excellent for new observers, as only the brightest stars (those that mark the major constellations) and planets remain visible for your easy identification. If you've never tried it, the Moon is a wonderful binocular object.

Evening and nighttime guide

The view looking southwest at 9 p.m. on May 15 (except for the changing Moon position, this mid-month view is accurate for all of May).

Items and events listed below assume you're outside and observing most anywhere in New York state. The longer you're outside and away from indoor or bright lights, the better your dark adaption will be. If you have to use your smartphone, find a red light app or piece of red acetate, else set your brightness as low as possible.

Southern Sights: May is the last month to catch an easy glimpse of Orion and Taurus, but the bright stars in Auriga and Gemini help to fill in your observing time. The thin, wispy band of the Milky Way in this part of the sky runs thickest through the feet of Gemini and all of Monoceros. As you look further east, you're looking off the plane of our galaxy into the deep void of intergalactic space.

This means you see fewer Messier Objects inside the galaxy, but Virgo specifically is a prime location for hunting many galaxies that would otherwise be covered over by even the thinnest band of the Milky Way.

The view looking northeast at 9:00 p.m. on May 15.

Northern Sights: The Big Dipper lies high in the sky during pre-midnight observing hours this month.

Arcturus and Hercules are easy targets by the time you're ready to observe, and bright Vega in the constellation Lyra now clears the tree line, marking one corner of the Summer Triangle and the wealth of deep sky objects starting their return within the densest region of the Milky Way.

Planetary Viewing

Mercury swapped places with Venus briefly at the beginning of April as the first planet to fall below the horizon after sunset. For May, Mercury has followed Venus to the morning sky, giving early risers a great chance to catch multiple planets before sunrise later in the month. For the first two weeks, Mercury will rise close to civil twilight and be virtually washed out by sunlight. Looking due east for a very bright pinpoint in binoculars may seal the deal, but be VERY careful about keeping your view away from the rising sun. The damage to your eyesight from even a second of the magnified sun is instant and permanent.

True to its name, Mercury will fly through the constellations Pisces, Cetus, and Aries this month. The early morning of May 23rd will host the thin, waning crescent moon between Mercury and the exceptionally bright Venus. The distant planet Uranus will even share the lunar field of view in 10×50 binoculars that morning, but likely be too difficult to see against the brightness of even the sliver of a crescent.

Mercury, Venus, a thin crescent Moon, and even possibly Uranus on the morning of May 23.

Venus is unmissable in the morning sky right now, rising after 4:30 a.m. on May 1 and by 3:45 a.m. on the 31st. Its thin crescent shape is very visible even in low-power binoculars, but you may need something to steady your hands if you're going to try to see this crescent clearly.

If you don't have a camera tripod and binocular bracket handy, a common cheap trick is to flip a broom over and steady the binos on the bristles – but vacuum them off first!

Fortunately, you've the whole month to practice – Venus will be slipping farther away all month within the Pisces border, but its crescent will grow from a quarter to nearly one-half by month's end, giving us plenty of reflected light to monitor the process in May and beyond.

Mars remains a reasonable, but dimming, catch in the western sky after sunset and will be visible within the borders of Taurus before 10:00 p.m. all month. That said, June will mark the transition from Mars to not-Mars in the evening sky, after which we'll be waiting until the early mornings in mid-August for another sight.

The Mars and Moon, looking west on May 27.

Jupiter is in its viewing prime in May, rising near 6:00 p.m. on the 1st and by 4:30 p.m. on the 31st. Throughout the month, it will be high and visible in the pre-midnight sky, never straying too far from the star Porrima in the constellation Virgo. On the evening of May 7th, the waxing gibbous Moon will be at its closest to Jupiter, making for an excellent pairing in binoculars. At that point, Jupiter will be easy to spot – and possibly the only other object in the vicinity of the Moon that you can see.

Low power binoculars are excellent for spying the four bright Galilean moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – and several online guides will even map their orbits for you so you can identify their motions nightly or, for the patient observer, even hourly.

The Moon and Jupiter on May 7.

Saturn Saturn has seen some excellent press in the past few weeks and you will hopefully be seeing quite a bit more of it in the few months to come. The Cassini Mission, which has done as much for scientific study as it has for desktop backgrounds since beginning its study of Saturn in 2004, is ending in a most spectacular way on September 15th of this year, when the satellite is scheduled to fall into Saturn itself. The reasons are two-fold. First, the probe will have exhausted its plutonium fuel supply. Second, and more importantly down the road, there's always a slight chance that Cassini has been hiding microbial hitchhikers from Earth all this time. An uncontrolled probe might just end up crash-landing into one of Saturn's moons, such as Titan or Enceladus, in which case there's a slight chance that those hiding microbes might just set up shop and begin populating a life-less moon – or possibly start competing with any native microbes that astrobiologists are anxiously hoping to find during future missions.

Saturn returns to the pre-midnight sky on May 1st, rising earlier each night until clearing the horizon just before 10:00 p.m. on the 31st. Saturn sits right near the Sagittarius/Ophiuchus border this month, crossing into Ophiuchus territory on May 20th. May 13th will see the waning gibbous Moon paired with Saturn, rising just before midnight. This is an excellent sight in binoculars, but not necessarily the best Saturn sight this month. If you're a true night owl, try to find Saturn after 2:00 a.m. during the first few mornings in May – so long as the Moon has set below the western sky, you may be able to spy Saturn, the open star clusters Messier 21 and 23, as well as the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae – all in the field of view of 10×50 binoculars. This is when a tripod, good chair, and a good long look in the binoculars will serve you best. If the 2 a.m. session isn't your thing, simply wait until after May 22, when the Moon is below the horizon and Saturn et al. rise after 11 p.m.

An exceptionally busy view of Saturn in binoculars.

ISS And Other Bright Flyovers

Satellite flyovers are commonplace, with several bright passes easily visible per hour in the nighttime sky, yet a thrill to new observers of all ages. Few flyovers compare in brightness or interest to the International Space Station. The flyovers of the football field-sized craft with its massive solar panel arrays can be predicted to within several seconds and take several minutes to complete.

May is chock full of ISS, with 72 nighttime-visible flyovers predicted. The first few weeks of May offer a great number of these flyovers, but only if you're willing to start your day off very early. The flyovers for the first few weeks all occur after 2 a.m., but only three occur on or after the late hour of 5 a.m. The flyovers for pre-midnight observers begin after the 22nd, with three chances per day to observe the ISS on the 24th, 26th, 28th, 30th, and 31st. Simply go out a few minutes before the start time, orient yourself, and look for what will at first seem like a distant plane.

ISS Flyovers

DateBrightnessApprox. StartStart DirectionApprox. EndEnd Direction
6-Mayvery4:54 AMS/SW5:00 AME/NE
8-Mayextremely4:47 AMSW4:52 AME/NE
10-Mayextremely4:39 AMW4:44 AMNE
12-Mayvery4:31 AMW4:36 AMNE
20-Maysomewhat12:51 AMNE12:51 AMNE
22-Maymoderately12:41 AMN/NE12:43 AMNE
22-Maymoderately11:49 PMN/NE11:51 PMNE
23-Mayvery9:17 PMS9:21 PME
23-Mayextremely10:52 PMW/SW10:58 PMNE
24-Maymoderately12:29 AMW/NW12:34 AMNE
24-Mayextremely9:59 PMSW10:06 PME/NE
24-Maymoderately11:36 PMW/NW11:42 PMNE
25-Mayextremely9:07 PMS/SW9:13 PME/NE
25-Mayvery10:44 PMW10:50 PMNE
26-Maymoderately12:21 AMNW12:26 AMNE
26-Mayextremely9:51 PMW/SW9:57 PMNE
26-Maymoderately11:29 PMW/NW11:34 PMNE
27-Maymoderately10:36 PMW/NW10:41 PMNE
28-Maymoderately12:13 AMNW12:18 AMNE
28-Maymoderately9:43 PMW9:49 PMNE
28-Maymoderately11:21 PMNW11:25 PMNE

Predictions courtesy of heavens-above.com. Times later in the month are subject to shifts – for accurate daily predictions, visit spotthestation.nasa.gov.

Meteor showers: Eta Aquariids April 20 to May 20, peaking May 5 and 6

Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the debris field of a comet or asteroid. As these objects approach the warming sun in their long orbits, they leave tiny bits behind – imagine pebbles popping out the back of a large gravel truck on an increasingly bumpy road. In the case of meteor showers, the brilliant streaks you see are due to particles usually no larger than grains of sand. The Earth plows through the swarm of these tiny particles at up-to 12 miles-per-second. High in the upper atmosphere, these particles burn up due to friction and ionize the air around them, producing the long light trails we see. We can predict the peak observing nights for a meteor shower because we know when and where in Earth's orbit we'll pass through the same part of the Solar System – this yearly periodicity in meteor activity is what let us identify and name meteor showers well before we ever had evidence of what caused them.

The Eta Aquariid radiant, complete with Venus, Saturn, the newly returned Summer Triangle, and one perfectly-placed 5 a.m. ISS flyover on the morning of May 6

The Eta Aquariids are believed to be due to the great Halley's Comet, although there is some debate as to whether Halley's Comet produced the debris or gravitationally nudged debris into the current area. If it is all Halley's debris, then Halley's elliptical path around the sun produces two meteor showers – the second being the Orionids in October.

The name of each meteor shower is based on the constellation from which the shooting stars appear to radiate – a position in the sky we call the radiant. When there are multiple meteor showers associated with the same constellation, the radiant is traced back even more accurately, right down to one of the stars in that constellation. There are seven meteor showers associated with Aquarius, but only two produce decent meteor showers. The Eta Aquariids appear to originate from very close to eta-Aquarius, although zeta-Aquarius is quite close as well.

How to observe: The Eta Aquariids are a long, gradual meteor shower that stretches over about 30 days. There is no sharp peak, only a predicted maximum around May 5th and 6th, with decent viewings possible from the 3rd to the 8th. The constellation Aquarius sits quite low on the horizon in the early mornings in early May and is not particularly prominent either. Depending on when you try to observe, Venus would serve as an adequate marker, else find the Summer Triangle high above and look half the distance to the horizon. To optimize your experience, lie flat on the ground with your feet pointed to the southeast and your head elevated – meteors will then appear to fly right over and around you.

Those interested in seeing a full list should check out the American Meteor Society meteor shower calendar.

Learn a Constellation: Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia and Cepheus in the late-evening May sky.

Our northeast-facing image in the Evening and Nighttime Guide above shows the Big Dipper marked in green and an arrow pointing towards Polaris in the Little Dipper. If we extend that arrow down another full length, we end up pointing near the Cassiopeia/Cepheus divide. Those with either a background in Greek mythology or ticket stubs to one of the two versions of "Clash Of The Titans" will know that these two constellations come as a pair – King Cepheus, ancient ruler of Aethiopia, and Queen Cassiopeia, who offended the gods by boasting of her or her daughter Andromeda's beauty.

During pre-midnight observing hours in May, Cassiopeia may remind you of something from a different movie – the 1963 comedy "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." Towards the end, Jonathan Winters is seen slowly turning around to identify one of the key plot points – a "Great Big W." Cassiopeia's motion around Polaris cleanly breaks into four groups that are easy to remember – from May to July, it's a "W" at the horizon, from August to October, a "3" in the northeast, from November to January an "M" high in the north, and from February to April an "E" in the northwest. Its five stars are very bright, but if the shape doesn't reveal itself the first few times, simply use the Big Dipper, find Polaris, and continue unit a W, 3, M, or E jumps out.

The five bright stars of the "W" asterism are all observing-worthy on their own. Caph is a variable star spinning so fast that it is 25% wider at its equator than its poles. Schedar is a four-star system. Navi is an unpredictable variable star whose brightness you can keep track of without any magnification. Ruchbah is an eclipsing binary star – which means one star goes right between us and the main star as it orbits every 25 months, causing a quick, predictable drop in the brightness. Finally, Segin is noteworthy for the shell of gas surrounding it, giving its spectrum a more complicated shape.

For the binocular observers, there are two Messier Objects to find – the open star clusters M52 and M103. Both of these might be more prominent in another part of the sky, but Cassiopeia lies just in front of a thin band of the Milky Way. As a result, binocular and telescope observers end up seeing a wealth of stars in the background as they scour for deep sky objects.

Dr. Damian Allis is the director of CNY Observers and a NASA Solar System Ambassador. If you know of any other NY astronomy events or clubs to promote, please contact the author.

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Free Astronomy Magazine – November-December 2020 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: At left, a false-color enhancement of an original photograph of the opaque Venus cloud cover taken by Mariner 10 during its gravity-assist maneuver en route to Mercury in February, 1974. At right, the surface of Venus as captured by the Magellan spacecraft. [Magellan Project/NASA/JPL]

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (November-December 2020) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure at www.astropublishing.com.

Our fearless leader Michele Ferrara was again gracious enough to offer me the cover article, this issue featuring a broader discussion of the phosphine detection in the Venusian atmosphere and the "extreme conditions call for extreme adaptation" analysis of what, if actually there, might go into understanding Venusian lifeforms.

Michele had a similar problem to mine in the writing of this article when he was putting the final touches on the Betelgeuse article in the September-October 2020 issue. Within two weeks of going to print, yet another article was published in the peer review that challenged the previously-published analysis of the events leading up to the changing brightness of Betelgeuse over last winter. For the phosphine article, the story is still quite evolving – within days of going to print, the article "Re-analysis of the 267-GHz ALMA observations of Venus: No statistically significant detection of phosphine" was published on arxiv.org claiming that the original published study was a result more of data-fitting than detection. There will be a follow-up article on the phosphine debate to come, but we, as the article says, "sit back and watch how the professionals do it" for a time.

The original content for this issue continues with two articles extending the recent discussions of SETI-related projects in the magazine. I mentioned to Michele that he's been writing so many of these articles as of late that I wonder if he knows something I don't…

This issue also, so far as the current plan is, brings me back to something I greatly enjoy but have not had the time to commit to as of late (global pandemic or no, there is no slowdown with a near-indefatigable 18-month-old in the house) – outreach through astronomy writing specifically, and astronomy writing in general. The adjustment to accomplish this was made through, after eight years, my stepping away from CNY Observers website and membership duties this past September (you will notice the finality of the most recent site post). The CNYO site is sub-hosted and paid up for some time to come, so its record of activities will remain.

Browser-readable version: www.astropublishing.com/6FAM2020/

Jump to the PDF download (14.2 MB): November-December 2020

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Some Light Science Reading. The Constellations: Orion

As first appeared in the April 2012 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle (PDF).

Image generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

Much can be said about the old hunter Orion. To Central New York observers, it had (until very recently) been the case that Orion made his way across the Night Sky during the coldest and least hospitable (to most nighttime observers) months of the year. Conditions would keep observers in hiding from him (some of the best CNY observers I know would risk surgical strikes on the Orion Nebula with their fastest to set-up and tear-down equipment). The abbreviated winter of 2011/2012 and reasonably early start of the SAS observing season have provided us with excellent opportunities in the past few months to make Orion The Hunter now the hunted. The mid-April observing session will be the last "official" opportunity to observe Orion before he disappears behind the Western horizon until the most nocturnal of us can next see him in our Eastern sky before sunrise in late August. I then take this opportunity to discuss Orion, one many CNY/SAS members may know the best by sight but may know the least by observing attention.

One of the topics covered in the 2011 SAS lecturing series was how we observe. Not the discussion of optics or the physics of planetary motion along the ecliptic, but the visual and mental mechanisms we use to translate the photonic triggers in our retina into mental pictures of celestial objects. Orion was the astronomical example I used to describe Pareidolia, how we impose a kind of order on things we see despite that order not being present in the actual collection. When you look at a cloud, you may see a face, an animal, or something your mind triggers as being something it clearly is not. I often placed the infamous "Face On Mars" next to the Constellation Orion to show clearly how we see what we think we see despite all reasonable evidence to the contrary (or the two can be mangled together, as shown below). The clouds may look like an animal, the "Face On Mars" looks unmistakably like a shadowed face, and Orion, as it happens, has looked like a human figure to virtually all peoples for as long as we have record of Constellations, the same way Scorpius has appeared as a scorpion to every civilization for which this little monster was part of the local biosphere.

Pareidolia is not just for cognitive neuroscience! One of the keys to learning the sky I discussed last year was to let your mind wander while staring at the sky and see if certain things jump out at you. The constellations are, for the most part, made up of the most reasonably bright star groupings, but if you see any type of geometry that makes some part of the sky easy to identify, run with it. This same philosophy may be responsible for the rise of the asterism, or "non-Constellation star grouping," as the distillation of mythological complexity into more practical tools for everyday living. For instance, I suspect everyone reading this can find the asterism known as the Big Dipper, but how many know all of the stars of its proper Constellation Ursa Major? Our southern tree line and Cortland obscure some of the grandeur of Sagittarius, which means we at the hill identify the location of its core (and several galactic highlights) by the easy-to-see "teapot." The body of Orion is a similar case of reduction-to-apparent, as the four stars marking his corners (clockwise from upper left)…

Betelgeuse (pronounced "Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Betelgeuse!" – marking his right shoulder; a red supergiant of very orange-ish color even without binoculars)

Bellatrix – the left shoulder (so you now know the Constellation is facing us as originally defined) – a blue giant known also known as the "Amazon Star"

Rigel – the left foot; a blue supergiant and the star system within which the aliens that make the Rigel Quick Finder reside

Saiph – the right foot; a star dim in the visible but markedly brighter in the ultraviolet. Saiph and Rigel are about the same distance away (Saiph 50 light years closer at 724 light years, a point to consider as you observe them both)

… and the three stars marking his belt (from left)…

Alnitak – A triple-star system 800 light years away with a blue supergiant as its anchor star

Alnilam – the farthest star of the belt at 1359 light years, this young blue supergiant burns as brightly as the other two, making the belt appear equally bright "al across"

Mintaka – 900 light years away, this is an eclipsing binary star system, meaning one star passes between us and the main star in its orbit (about every 5.7 days)

… are obvious to all, while the head and club stars require a longer look to identify.

Sticking to Naked Eye observing for a moment, Orion is not only famous for its historical significance and apparent brightness. Orion is ideally oriented to serve as an order of alignment for several nearby Constellations and is surrounded by enough bright stars and significant Constellations that curiosity alone should have you familiar with this part of the sky in very short order. As an April focus, it is of benefit that all of the Constellations we'll focus on either hit the horizon at the same time as Orion or they rest above him.

I've color-coded the significant stars marking notable Constellations in the image below. If you're standing outside on any clear night, the marked stars should all be quite obvious (we're talking a hands' width or two at arm's length). From right and working our way counterclockwise…

(RED) Following the belt stars to the right will lead you to the orange-ish star Aldebaran, marking the eye of Taurus the Bull. This is a dense part of the sky, as Aldebaran marks both the head of the Bull and also marks the brightest star in the Hyades star cluster (a gravitationally-bound open cluster 150 light years away composed of over 100 stars). Just to the right of this cluster is the "Tiny Dipper" known as the Pleiades (Messier 45), another dense star cluster worth observing at all magnifications. Both of these clusters are simultaneously easier and harder to find at present, as Venus ("1") is resting just above them, providing an easy way to find both clusters but plenty of reflected light to dull the brilliance of the two open clusters.

(ORANGE) Auriga, featuring Capella (the third brightest star in the Night Sky), is an oddly-shaped hexagon featuring a small triangle at one corner. Auriga, like Ursa Minor in last month's discussion, is made easy to find by the fact that the five marked stars are in an otherwise nondescript part of the sky (relatively dim generally, but brighter than anything in the vicinity). Venus will dull Hassaleh (Auriga's closest star to Venus and the two open clusters below it) but Elnath and Capella will be easy finds.

(YELLOW) Castor and Pollux, the twins of Gemini, are literally standing on Orion's club. Making an arrow from Mintaka (the right-most star of the belt) and Betelgeuse will lead you to Alhena (Pollux's left foot), after which a slow curve in a horseshoe shape will give you the remaining stars.

(GREEN) Canis Minor is two stars (which is boring), but is significant for containing Procyon, the 7th brightest star in the Night Sky (which means it will be an EASY find). But don't confuse it with Sirius, which is the big shimmering star in…

(BLUE) Canis Major is the larger of Orion's two dogs and contains Sirius ("The Dog Star"), a star so bright (magnitude −1.46) and so close (8.6 light years) that it appears not as a star but as a shimmering light. Some would say an airplane, others would say a hovering UFO. Part of my duties as president involve intermittently explaining that it is not the latter.

And, with respect, Monoceros is an old Constellation but not a particularly brilliant one. Having Canis Minor and Canis Major identified will make your identification of Monoceros quite straightforward.

We now turn to the other "stellar" objects in Orion, composed of three Messiers and one famous IC. M78 is a diffuse nebula almost one belt width above and perpendicular to Alnitak. You will know it when you see it. M43 and M42 (marked as "4" in the image below), on the other hand, are so bright and close that you can see their nebulosity in dark skies without aid of any optics.

M42 – The Orion Nebula is, in the right dark conditions, a Naked Eye sight in itself. For those of us between cities, even low-power binoculars bring out the wispy edges and cloudy core of this nebula. For higher-power observers, the resolving of Trapezium at M42's core serves as one of your best tests of astronomy binoculars (I consider the identification of four stars as THE proper test of a pair of 25×100's. Ideal conditions and a larger aperture will get you six stars total). You could spend all night just exploring the edges and depths of this nebula. You can take a look back at the Astro Bob article in the April 2012 edition of the Astronomical Chronicle (From My Driveway To Orion, Nature Works Wonders) for a more detailed discussion of this part of Orion.

M43 – de Mairan's Nebula is, truth be told, a lucky designation. M43 is, in fact, part of the M42 nebula that is itself a small part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex (not THAT'S a label). M43 owes its differentiation to a dark lane of dust that breaks M43 and M42, just as the lane of dust in our own Milky Way we know as the "Great Rift" splits what would otherwise be one continuous band of distant stars the same way a large rock in a stream causes the water to split in two and recombine on the other side.

Finally (and the one you'll work for), IC 434, the Horsehead Nebula, lies just to the lower-left of Alnitak (1). The Horsehead is itself a dark nebula, a region absorbing light to make it pronounced by its difference from the lighter regions around it. To put the whole area into perspective, The Horsehead is itself STILL within the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The sheath of Orion's Sword and nearly the entire belt is contained in this Complex, like dust being rattled off with each blow from Orion's club.

I close by taking a look at the perilously ignored club attempting to tear into Taurus. At present, asteroids surround Orion's Club like pieces of debris flying off after a hard impact. All are in the vicinity of 12th magnitude (so require a decent-sized mirror), and all are also moving at a sufficiently fast clip that their paths can be seen to change over several observing sessions (if, by miracle, enough clear days in a row can be had to make these measurements). I have highlighted the five prominent ones in the image below.

Is it an oddity to have Orion so full of asteroids? Certainly not! Orion is placed near the ecliptic, the apparent path of the planets in their motion around the Sun. Orion's club just barely grazes the ecliptic at the Gemini/Taurus border, two of the 12 Constellations of the Zodiac, the collection of Constellations that themselves mark the ecliptic. As nearly all of the objects in the Solar System lie near or within the disc of the Solar System, you expect to find all manner of smaller objects in the vicinity of the Zodiacal Constellations. In effect, Orion's club is kicking up different dust all year long as the asteroids orbit the Sun. You only have a few more weeks to watch the action happen before Orion's return in the very early early morning of the very late summer.

– Happy Hunting, Damian