Sky Watch September & October 2008
After a wonderful dinner in the Virgin Islands, go out and look to the southern sky and you will easily spot a bright, yellowish-white, star-like object. This is the largest of all the planets, Jupiter. Just to the west of Jupiter look for a bright red star. The star is Anatares, sometimes called the rival of Mars since they both are bright red.
Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius, the Scorpion. Scorpius is one of the few star groups that actually look something like its name suggests. From Antares look slightly to the east and you can find a string of fainter stars that form the scorpion's body and long curved tail.
This is the scorpion that sprung out of the Earth at the command of Juno. It seems Orion, the Hunter, was boasting that he could defeat any creature on Earth. Juno called forth the scorpion, the scorpion stung Orion on the foot and Orion died. Orion was indeed such a mighty hunter that he was placed in the sky as was the scorpion. But, you never see Orion and Scorpius at the same time!
The three bright stars that dominate the sky overhead are Altair, Deneb and Vega. Each is in a different constellation, but since they form a large triangle that is visible during summer nights up north, they form what is known as the Summer Triangle. Brightest of the three and highest in the sky is Vega, in Lyra the Harp. To the east of Vega and closer to the eastern horizon is Deneb, the tail of Cygnus, the Swan. Slightly to the South is Altair in Aquila the Eagle.
Arcing across the sky from Cygnus down to Scorpius is a hazy band of white light. Since people first gazed skyward, they must have wondered about that band of light. It was not until the early 1600�s that people would begin to understand what caused this band. It was Galileo who looking through his telescope first wrote of the Milky Way being made of millions of stars. An historical footnote, Galileo did not invent the telescope. He was however the first to use the telescope to make astronomical discoveries.
The Milky Way we see in the night sky is the light from billions of stars so far away that you cannot see each one as a point of light. Earth is our home, the solar system our neighborhood and the Milky Way our city of stars in the universe.
