Do you know the name of the brightest nighttime star we see most often? It’s not Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, it’s not Polaris the North Star, and not even my favorite star, Betelgeuse, the armpit of the constellation Orion the Hunter.
The brightest star we see most often in the skies is Capella, known as the goat star. On these midspring evenings about 10 p.m., when it’s finally dark enough, you see it hanging out in the low western skies.
Normally this time of year it would be the brightest stellar object in that part of the sky, but this year Capella has to take a back seat to Venus.
As you can see on the diagram Venus is the brightest starlike object in the sky right now in the early evening. Capella is the next brightest object you see, to the upper right of Venus.
Next spring Venus won’t be anywhere near Capella.
Capella is the fourth brightest nighttime star seen over the Northwest. It’s the closest bright star to Polaris, the North Star. Everything we see in the sky, including the sun, moon, planets, as well as the stars all rotate once around Polaris every 24 hours.
Since the Northwestern region is about halfway between the North Pole and the Earth’s equator, Polaris is permanently fixed halfway between the northern horizon and the overhead zenith.
Stars and constellations like the Big and Little Dippers as well as the W-shaped Cassiopeia that are close to Polaris in our skies are always above the horizon in a tight circle around the North Star.
They are called circumpolar stars that we see night after night. Capella, the goat star, is not quite close enough to Polaris to be considered a circumpolar star, but it’s close. Because of its northwardly position, Capella is in the evening skies from late August to about mid-June. Throughout the year it never goes a full night without making a brilliant appearance.
Capella is also the brightest star in the constellation Auriga, the chariot driver turned goat farmer. Auriga and the constellation Gemini the Twins are all that’s left of Orion’s gang of winter constellations that are heading for the celestial exits in the western horizon.
They won’t be back in the evening skies until late next fall when our evening worldly view turns back toward that direction of space.
Auriga is one of the strangest constellations. It looks like a lopsided pentagon with Capella at one of the corners.
There are lots of stories and mythology about how certain constellations got up in the sky, depending on the local culture. One of the Greek tales involves the legendary King Erichthonius of Athens, who’s father was Hephaestus, the god of fire. Hephaestus was raised by Athene, the patron goddess of the Greek city of Athens.
Athene passed on her love of horses. Erichthonius became quite skilled and went on to be the first to harness four horses on one chariot, but Erichthonius also longed for the simple life of a farmer. One day he became a goat farmer.
He died a happy old man and was honored by the king of the gods, Zeus, who had the body of Erichthonius magically transformed into the pentagon shape of stars we see today. Zeus gave him a set of chariot reins and put a mama goat and three kids up there with him.
The star Capella marks the position of the mama goat, thus making it the goat star. Just below Capella, with your naked eye, you can see three fainter stars in a triangle that make up the young kids. The kid star closest to Capella is called Almaaz, a giant binary star system more than 12,000 trillion miles from Earth and is 40,000 times more luminous than our sun.
Mike Lynch is an 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.
The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members. Go to www.everettastro.org/.
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