August is prime time for stargazing

Published 9:00 pm Friday, July 28, 2006

I have a love-hate relationship with this time of year. I hate the fact that summer is starting to wind down and vacation season is coming to an end. However, as an amateur astronomer, I love August stargazing because the nights are longer, and you don’t have to deal with the autumn chill yet. There is almost another full hour of nighttime and the sky is dark enough for star hunting by 10 p.m.

Besides mere convenience for stargazers, the late summer skies are ripe with good stuff to gaze at. First off, there are the dippers. The Big Dipper, which is actually the rear end and the tail of the Big Bear, Ursa Major, is hanging lazily by its handle, or tail if you please, in the high northwestern sky. The Little Dipper, which is the same as the Little Bear, is standing up on its handle and is much dimmer than the Big Dipper. Sadly enough it’s nearly invisible in metro areas, unless you’re in the outer ring of suburbs. The only really bright star in the Little Dipper is Polaris, otherwise known as the North Star, at the end of the handle.

Polaris is by no means the brightest star in the sky, but it is the linchpin because every single star and planet, including the sun and moon, appear to revolve around it every 24 hours. That’s because Polaris is shining directly above the Earth’s North Pole, and as our world rotates, all of the stars appear to us to whirl around the North Star.

In the western sky the brightest star is Arcturus, also the brightest star in the constellation Bootes. Bootes looks more like a giant kite, with the orange reddish star Arcturus at the tail of the kite. Now you may think you see a much brighter star in the low southwestern sky after sunset. That’s actually the planet Venus, gradually leaving the evening skies early next month.

The second brightest star in the evening is Vega, the bright star in a small faint constellation called Lyra (the harp). Vega is a brilliant bluish white star perched high over the eastern sky, almost overhead. Vega and the small faint parallelogram just to the lower east of Vega is supposed to outline a celestial harp in the sky. If you’re quiet enough you may even hear music in the sky.

As you continue to look eastward, you’ll also notice two other bright stars that form a triangle with Vega. This is known as the Summer Triangle. The star to the lower left of Vega is Deneb, the brightest star in Cygnus (the swan), otherwise known as the Northern Cross for obvious reasons. The star to the lower right of Vega is Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila (the eagle).

In the low southern sky are two of my favorite constellations, and as far as I’m concerned they’re the signature constellations of summer. In the southwest is Scorpio with the bright brick-red star Antares at the heart. It’s one of those few constellations that look like what it’s supposed to be. In the low southeast sky is Sagittarius, which is supposed to be a centaur shooting a bow and arrow. Forget about that; most people I know refer to it by its nickname, the Teapot.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the new book “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and on his Web site, www.lynchandthestars.com.