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So I've been busy here in Bton. SF dinner, Gamer's Guild, anime club, and of course the wedding, which went great and I had fun, and I also got sentimental. And I've seen almost all my friends already, if some not as much as I'd like. But this isn't about those. This is about what may have been the best stargazing night of my life.
There've been other big nights. The Milky Way, meteors, other meteors, Comet Hyakutake and Mercury (same night, I think), the Southern Hemisphere. But I think this is the top night in my life for identifying what I was seeing.
That's a really low bar, mind you, what with having lived in cities most of life with few country trips and none with a star guide in hand. But still.
Came as I was walking 'home' from anime club, in the cold somewhat clear air, down 2nd street, and hitting somewhat dark spots -- not too many street and house lights, and only occasional car headlights to close my eyes against. It started as I looked north and identified Polaris straight off -- I don't even need the Big Dipper in an urban sky, if you know where north is then Polaris is the only thing visible in that part of the sky. Helps to be intimately familiar with the right angle to look at, of course, which was first identified 9 years ago via the Big Dipper. Anyway, having found that, I looked outward for the Big Dipper.
Couldn't see it. Rather baffling; lots of stars, but none of them right. Couldn't see Orion either, which I usually can if I can't see the Dipper. Baffling! Could see what I thought was Jupiter. But no Dipper.
But hey! As of a year ago, I have a smartphone. And as of sometime, I have Orrery on it, a stargazing program. (Also Stellarium, but that nearly kills my eee, never mind a phone.) So I started Orrery and got myself oriented.
Aha! The Dipper was basically buried behind trees and houses to the north, Orion blocked by trees to the east. 'Jupiter' was in fact Jupiter. But then I looked further. W-like thingy NE of Polaris, Cassiopeia? Yep -- I've absorbed *something* over the years. That's about it for what I knew off my head. But I identified a whole lot more. Perseus; star Capella just over some trees, and later an associated peak to its right that's part of Auriga; Andromeda, manifesting as two or three stars in a line; Triangulum; Aries, also manifesting as three simple stars, just above Jupiter; later, part of Cetus below Jupiter; Pegasus (also somewhat familiar), including a star to the right of Schaet and two stars below it, and a line of stars below Markab leading to Enif; Deneb capping Cygnus, and Altair and Vega by themselves. Maybe Cepheus. I don't think Draco. Aldebaran was below unobstructed visibility. As for magnitudes, I think the 4.6 map was more accurate than the 4.4 map or 4.8, but I wouldn't swear to it.
So, yeah. Biggest ID night ever, with just me and a star map program.
There've been other big nights. The Milky Way, meteors, other meteors, Comet Hyakutake and Mercury (same night, I think), the Southern Hemisphere. But I think this is the top night in my life for identifying what I was seeing.
That's a really low bar, mind you, what with having lived in cities most of life with few country trips and none with a star guide in hand. But still.
Came as I was walking 'home' from anime club, in the cold somewhat clear air, down 2nd street, and hitting somewhat dark spots -- not too many street and house lights, and only occasional car headlights to close my eyes against. It started as I looked north and identified Polaris straight off -- I don't even need the Big Dipper in an urban sky, if you know where north is then Polaris is the only thing visible in that part of the sky. Helps to be intimately familiar with the right angle to look at, of course, which was first identified 9 years ago via the Big Dipper. Anyway, having found that, I looked outward for the Big Dipper.
Couldn't see it. Rather baffling; lots of stars, but none of them right. Couldn't see Orion either, which I usually can if I can't see the Dipper. Baffling! Could see what I thought was Jupiter. But no Dipper.
But hey! As of a year ago, I have a smartphone. And as of sometime, I have Orrery on it, a stargazing program. (Also Stellarium, but that nearly kills my eee, never mind a phone.) So I started Orrery and got myself oriented.
Aha! The Dipper was basically buried behind trees and houses to the north, Orion blocked by trees to the east. 'Jupiter' was in fact Jupiter. But then I looked further. W-like thingy NE of Polaris, Cassiopeia? Yep -- I've absorbed *something* over the years. That's about it for what I knew off my head. But I identified a whole lot more. Perseus; star Capella just over some trees, and later an associated peak to its right that's part of Auriga; Andromeda, manifesting as two or three stars in a line; Triangulum; Aries, also manifesting as three simple stars, just above Jupiter; later, part of Cetus below Jupiter; Pegasus (also somewhat familiar), including a star to the right of Schaet and two stars below it, and a line of stars below Markab leading to Enif; Deneb capping Cygnus, and Altair and Vega by themselves. Maybe Cepheus. I don't think Draco. Aldebaran was below unobstructed visibility. As for magnitudes, I think the 4.6 map was more accurate than the 4.4 map or 4.8, but I wouldn't swear to it.
So, yeah. Biggest ID night ever, with just me and a star map program.