Another hot tip for sky watchers

Lovely clear sky last night.

Dog walkers habits change throughout the year, at the height of Summer, with long, long days, time is on the side of a dog & their owner to take an early or a late walk as they see fit. As the days grow shorter however, the window of opportunity shortens & you tend to find all the dogs out at the same time, it becomes very social. We drink wine, smokers smoke, all gossip, and the dogs chase each other. Then, as the shortest day approaches (bring it ON!), and it’s pretty much dark at 5pm, it doesn’t much matter when you go out, it’s going to be pitch black anyway, and so it becomes again, like Summer, not that unusual to see no-one else out on the trails.

Last night, Wilma & I were alone on Magpie Lawn, it was a beautiful clear night & the stars were out in force. If you happen to be outside around about 6pm in the next few evenings, here’s a quick guide to what’s up there of interest.

Look up into the North Eastern sky & you’ll see a very bright star. You can’t miss it. And it’s not actually a star, it is Jupiter. I’m told that with a decent pair of binoculars, if you can hold them steady, you can see the big red spot.

Look a little to the East from there (right), and down a bit, and you can see the constellation of Scorpio – it looks like a T-bar lying on its side. Further East & up a bit is the Southern Cross, with its pointers down below.

Turn 180 degrees from Scorpio & up in the sky is another bright star – this one actually is a star, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (so anything brighter is either a planet, or man made, discounting the moon of course). Sirius is the dog star, and it forms the neck of the Canis Majoris constellation, the Big Dog. You can see its tail pointing upwards.

On our way home last night, we picked up M from a friend’s house & walked home with her. Just as we were approaching our house, she pointed up into the west & shouted “Shooting star!” and indeed it was a good one.

Oh, and if you’re out a little earlier, say around 5.50pm, look to the East & I’m told you may be lucky enough to see the Space Station as it travels West. It takes about 5 minutes to traverse the sky, we saw it several years ago. It’s surprisingly bright.