Outdoors

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008 Cold skies highlight brilliant stars of winter By Mike Lynch Special to The Herald Although we're past the holidays, it's still the most wonderful time of the year for stargazing. Even if you live in an urban or suburban area plagued with light pollution, you can't help but be impressed with the great celestial show overhead, especially in the southern half of the sky. Without a doubt, the brightest stars and constellations of the year are available right now on these cool winter evenings, and it's not just because the humidity of summer is long gone and the air is clear and dry. There are just many more bright stars out there in the winter than in the summer. This winter we have the added bonus of the planet Mars, which is the brightest star-like object in the sky right now. It's well worth taking a trip out into the countryside to check out the winter star show, and be prepared to be absolutely dazzled. Just don't jump out of the car and take a hasty glance. Bundle up and spend as much time as you can under the heavens. Maybe sit back in a lawn chair with a quilt over you and something warm to sip. I guarantee it will be a glorious, magical, mystical evening, one you won't soon forget. The centerpiece of the evening winter delight is the wonderful constellation Orion the Hunter. Not only is it one of the biggest and brightest constellations, but it's also one of the few constellations that actually looks like what it's supposed to be. Without too much heavy lifting by your imagination, you can see the torso of a well-built man with broad shoulders and a tight, firm waistline marked by the three distinct stars in a row that outline Orion's belt. I have to tell you, though, that when I was a little kid the constellation Orion the Hunter always reminded me of the "Wizard of Oz." Remember in the movie how the Wicked Witch of the West had Dorothy locked in a dungeon with a giant hourglass? Somehow, when the sand in the hourglass ran out Dorothy would be toast. They kept showing close-ups of that hourglass running out of sand with a terrified Dorothy in the background. To me, the constellation Orion looked just like Dorothy's deadly hourglass. Orion is full of wonderful celestial treasures like the Great Orion Nebulae, where new stars are being incubated and born. I'll go into more depth about Orion's celestial goodies in future Starwatch columns this winter, but this week I just wanted to touch on some of the mythology and legends involving Orion. There are as many stories about the constellation Orion as there are bright stars in the winter sky. The ancient Sumerians saw Orion as a great shepherd. The Chinese saw it as one of their lunar mansions. Orion is even mentioned in the Bible three times, twice in the book of Job and once in the book of Amos. In Greek and Roman mythology, Orion was the son of Neptune, the god of the sea, and a mortal woman with whom Neptune had a fling. That made Orion a half-god, and since his old man was the sea deity, he was able to literally walk on water, which made fishing very easy for Orion. He simply walked out on to the ocean or sea and pulled any fish right out of the water that happened to come near the surface. Not only was he a walking fisherman, he was also a great hunter. He had a great life as a bachelor hunter. His downfall was that he fell in love with Artemis, the goddess of the moon. This angered Artemis' brother Apollo, the god of the sun, who launched a plot to kill Orion using a giant Scorpion. The Egyptians paid great homage to the constellation Orion, especially his belt. They associated those three stars with Osiris, the god of the underworld. It was believed by many that Osiris actually fed on the flesh of the departed and especially had an appetite for lesser gods, royalty and dead pharaohs. In fact, some believe that the southwest to northeast arrangement of the three great Pyramids of Giza are laid out as a sky map of Orion's belt. Some say it's just a coincidence, but what intrigues me is that the pyramid on the northeast side is smaller than the other two. When you look at Orion's belt, the star Mintaka, on the upper right hand side of the belt, is a little dimmer than the other two stars, Alnitak and Alnilam. Maybe there is a terrestrial-celestial connection. While you are out gazing at Orion and all of the bright winter stars this week, there will be a couple of what I call "celestial huggings" going on. Thursday night, the football-shaped waxing gibbous moon will pass close to the bright star cluster Pleiades, and next Saturday the near-full moon will cuddle up right next to Mars. Don't miss it. Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, "Washington Starwatch", available at bookstores and at his Web site, www.lynchandthestars.com.

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