The scourge of stargazers is with us this weekend and the first part of next week. The last full moon of this spring will once again muddy up our night skies.
It’s rough enough this time of year with true darkness not setting in until after 10 p.m. Amateur astronomy is a late show. By Thursday or Friday the moon should be rising late enough to do some star watching.
As always this time of year, you’ll see that the moon takes a very low southern track across the sky. In fact, it takes the same path across the southern sky that the sun does around the first day of winter in late December.
At the same time, we’re now seeing the sun take a very high arc across the southern sky as we approach the first day of summer later this month. From our perspective on Earth, the full moon is always in the opposite direction from the sun.
This week in Starwatch I want to feature the constellation Virgo the Virgin, one of only three lady constellations we can see in the Northwest skies over the course of the year. Andromeda the Princess and Cassiopeia the Queen are the only other ladies of the sky.
I know you’ve seen Cassiopeia before, although you may not have known what you were stargazing at. Cassiopeia is that bright W that you see in the northern sky every single night as it makes a tight circle around Polaris the North Star every 24 hours.
This time of year look for the W low in the northern sky. You can’t miss it. It’s as bright as the Big Dipper. The W outlines the throne that Queen Cassiopeia is tied to because she boasted that she was more beautiful than Hera, the queen of all the gods.
Hera had Cassiopeia tied to the throne and tossed into the sky so she could show her beauty to everyone on Earth. As she spins around the North Star sometimes she’s lying on her back as she is now, but in the early winter when the W is upside down she’s hanging by the ropes.
Unfortunately Virgo the Virgin is not so prominent in the night sky. You have to work a little to see Virgo. You really need to be away from city lights to be able to see this large but faint constellation. It’s what I call a stargazing “deep track.”
It’s surprising that this faint collection of stars about halfway up in the south-southwestern sky is called the goddess of fertility. It only has one bright star, Spica, and the rest of the stars are so faint you need to be out in the countryside, armed with patience.
The best way to find Virgo is to find Spica. Look in the high northwestern sky for the Big Dipper hanging by its handle. Follow the curve of the handle and you’ll run right into the bright orange star Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Bootes the Farmer. Continue the arc beyond Arcturus and the next brightest star you’ll happen upon will be Spica, which marks the left hand of Virgo the Virgin.
Spica is a giant blue star about 263 light-years, or about 1,519 trillion miles away from Earth. It’s 10 times as massive and more than five times larger than our sun with a girth of almost 5 million miles. Spica is a lot hotter than our sun with a surface temperature well over 30,000 degrees.
Spica is also moving away from us at a speed of 2,200 miles an hour, although it will still adorn our spring and summer heavens for many evenings to come.
If you have a larger telescope, and you’re really out in the boonies, you have a chance of seeing at least a few of the many galaxies that are about 60 million light years from Earth. As you can see on the diagram these galaxies are located a little to the right of Virgo.
Since Virgo is such a faint constellation it’s easier to use the star Spica as a bearing. The Virgo cluster will be 20 degrees or about two fist-widths at arm’s length to the upper right of Spica.
These galaxies may look like fuzzy patches, but those fuzzy patches are made up of whole islands of stars, each one of them with billions and billions of stars.
This is the last call to view Saturn through your telescope because by mid-July it will already be below the horizon before darkness even sets in. Even now it’s getting that fuzzy look because we have to look through more of our Earth’s atmosphere to see it.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
