Autumn stargazing has officially begun

  • By Mike Lynch
  • Thursday, October 1, 2015 9:24am
  • Life

It’s time to enjoy the beauty of the autumn night sky. We’re entering the prime time of stargazing season. The nights are longer and with less humidity and the skies are generally more transparent.

Dress warmly and discover how awesome it is to lie back on a lawn chair and take in the show. The dark skies of the countryside are best, but it’s even a great show if you have to put up with light pollution, unless it’s way out of hand.

Even though summer is long gone there’s still a many stars of summer hanging on in the western sky after evening twilight. You can still easily see the Summer Triangle high above the western horizon with the three bright stars from three separate constellations. The brightest shiner is Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp. In second place for brilliance is Altair in Aquila the Eagle. The third brightest nuclear fusion furnace is Deneb in another bird constellation, Cygnus the Swan. Cygnus is also known by a lot of stargazers as the “Northern Cross”, because at first glance that’s what it really looks like. Deneb is at the top of the cross and below you can see three dimmer stars that make up the crosspiece of the cross. Roll your eyes a little ways below the crosspiece and look for an equally bright star at the foot of the cross. That’s Albireo.

You definitely want to check out Albireo with binoculars or a small telescope. You’ll like what you see here. Albireo is actually a double star. One star is gold and the other is blue and you can really see these colors. The two stars look like they are right next to each other but they’re by many astronomers to be about light-year apart. Astronomers don’t know for sure but Albireo may be a binary system. The two stars could be orbiting each other in a period of around 100,000 years. I don’t think you want to stay to see that.

The Big Dipper is upright and riding low in the northwestern sky. In fact, it’s getting so low that it’s hard to see if you have a high tree line. The Big Dipper is the most famous star pattern there is, but it’s technically not a constellation. The Big Dipper is actually the rear end and the tail of the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear. It’s also the brightest part of the Big Bear.

Over in the eastern skies is the grand constellation Pegasus, the winged horse. Look for a giant diamond of stars on the rise in the east. Just to the upper left of Pegasus is the Andromeda Galaxy, the next door neighbor to our Milky Way, nearly 2.5 million light years away, with just one light year spanning nearly six trillion miles.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Life

Brandon Hailey of Cytrus, center, plays the saxophone during a headlining show at Madam Lou’s on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lynnwood-based funk octet Cytrus has the juice

Resilience and brotherhood take center stage with ‘friends-first’ band.

FILE - In this April 11, 2014 file photo, Neko Case performs at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Fire investigators are looking for the cause of a fire on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, that heavily damaged Case’s 225-year-old Vermont home. There were no injuries, though a barn was destroyed. It took firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Singer-songwriter Neko Case, an indie music icon from Tacoma, performs Sunday in Edmonds.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli
Tangier’s market boasts piles of fruits, veggies, and olives, countless varieties of bread, and nonperishables, like clothing and electronics.
Rick Steves on the cultural kaleidoscope of Tangier in Morocco

Walking through the city, I think to myself, “How could anyone be in southern Spain — so close — and not hop over to experience this wonderland?”

chris elliott.
Vrbo promised to cover her rental bill in Hawaii, so why won’t it?

When Cheryl Mander’s Vrbo rental in Hawaii is uninhabitable, the rental platform agrees to cover her new accommodations. But then it backs out. What happened?

The Moonlight Swing Orchestra will play classic sounds of the Big Band Era on April 21 in Everett. (submitted photo)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Relive the Big Band Era at the Port Gardner Music Society’s final concert of the season in Everett.

2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD (Honda)
2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD

Honda cedes big boy pickup trucks to the likes of Ford, Dodge… Continue reading

Would you want to give something as elaborate as this a name as mundane as “bread box”? A French Provincial piece practically demands the French name panetiere.
A panetiere isn’t your modern bread box. It’s a treasure of French culture

This elaborately carved French antique may be old, but it’s still capable of keeping its leavened contents perfectly fresh.

(Judy Newton / Great Plant Picks)
Great Plant Pick: Mouse plant

What: Arisarum proboscideum, also known as mouse plant, is an herbaceous woodland… Continue reading

Bright green Japanese maple leaves are illuminated by spring sunlight. (Getty Images)
Confessions of a ‘plantophile’: I’m a bit of a junky for Japanese maples

In fact, my addiction to these glorious, all-season specimens seems to be contagious. Fortunately, there’s no known cure.

2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited (Hyundai)
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited

The 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited is a sporty, all-electric, all-wheel drive sedan that will quickly win your heart.

The 2024 Dodge Hornet R/T hybrid’s face has the twin red lines signifying the brand’s focus on performance. (Dodge)
2024 Hornet R/T is first electrified performance vehicle from Dodge

The all-new compact SUV travels 32 miles on pure electric power, and up to 360 miles in hybrid mode.

Don’t blow a bundle on glass supposedly made by the Henry William Stiegel

Why? Faked signatures, reused molds and imitated styles can make it unclear who actually made any given piece of glass.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.