The Dippers, big and little, fill August skies

Published 10:18 am Friday, July 31, 2009

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. And the sky is dark enough for star hunting by 10 p.m.

The late summer skies are rife with good stuff. First off there are the Dippers. The Big Dipper, which is actually the rear end and the Big Bear, Ursa Major, is hanging lazily by its tail in the high northwestern sky.

The Little Dipper, or the Little Bear, is standing up on its handle and is much dimmer than the Big Dipper. Sadly enough it’s darn near invisible in the metro area. 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. Polaris is shining directly above the Earth’s North Pole and as the 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 the Hunting Farmer. Bootes looks more like a giant kite, with the reddish orange 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 giant 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 Lyre, or 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.

As you continue to look eastward, you’ll 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. 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 the Scorpion with the bright, brick-red star Antares at the heart of the Scorpion.

In the low southeastern sky the super bright planet Jupiter, largest of all the planets in our solar system, and Earth reach their closest pass to each other for 2009. I’ll have more on the Jovian giant later on this month in Starwatch.

Mike Lynch is an amateur 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 at www.everettastro.org/.