Prime stargazing season begins in the autumn

Published 4:25 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

It’s autumn now, and it’s a really wonderful time to get out and enjoy the absolute beauty of the night sky.

We’re entering the prime time of stargazing season. The nights are longer, and with less moisture in the air, the skies are clearer.

Even if you’re not a big time stargazing fan, you owe yourself the treat of taking in the celestial happenings. The dark skies of the countryside are best, but it’s a great show right from your own yard.

To start the evening, look for a super-bright object in the low southwestern sky during the later stages of evening twilight. That’s the planet Venus, about 120 million miles from Earth.

A telescope won’t show you any detail, because it’s very low in the sky and is blurred pretty severely by our atmosphere. Besides that, it’s a heavily clouded planet to begin with. Don’t wait too long to look for Venus because it slips below the horizon by 8 p.m.

Jupiter is still holding court higher in the southwest sky. Using a telescope or a small pair of binoculars, see if you can spot up to four of Jupiter’s orbiting moons and some of the cloud bands on the great planet. To the lower right of Jupiter in the lower southwest sky, try to find the great constellation Sagittarius the Archer, which looks more like a tipping teapot than an archer.

Even though it’s autumn, summer is hanging on in the western sky. You can still easily see the famous Summer Triangle high above the western horizon, made up of three bright stars from three separate constellations. There’s Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, and Deneb, the brightest star, in Cygnus the Swan. Cygnus is also known by a lot of stargazers as the Northern Cross.

To the north, the Big Dipper is upright and riding low in the northwestern sky. 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, but technically it’s 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.

Also, if you’re far enough away from the city lights you may see the bright Milky Way Band, the thickest part of our home galaxy, stretching from the northeast to southwest horizon. Make the stars your old friends before you need a heavier coat.

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

The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members and puts on public star parties. The Web site is members.tripod.com/everett_astronomy.