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Autumn Dipper? [image]
Look up! The stars overhead change as the seasons change on Earth. The stars highest above the horizon in mid evening are considered to be the stars of the season. A sure sign of autumn is the Great Square of Pegasus. At the end of October and the beginning of November see the four stars which mark the Great Square east of overhead around 7:00pm. At the end of November and the first two weeks of December see this Great Square west of overhead around 7:00pm. This configuration of stars is often mistaken for the Big Dipper in Ursa Major, a northern circumpolar constellation. Ursa Major can be seen overhead all year round as it circles the north pole. The Great Square of Pegasus is seen overhead only in autumn.
The "bowl" of this Autumn Dipper is the Great Square of Pegasus. The ancient Babylonians called this square "The Doorway to Paradise". Today astronomers travel through this doorway or "window" to the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy and go beyond to other galaxies! This imperfectly shaped square is not a constellation; it is an asterism. Three of its corner stars, Markab, Scheat and Algenib. belong to the constellation Pegasus, the Flying or Winged Horse, and the fourth corner star is Alpheratz, the brightest star of Andromeda, the Princess. The "handle" of the Autumn Dipper stretches to the northeast and three of its almost evenly spaced stars, Alpheratz, Mirach and Almach belong to Andromeda. The fourth star, Marfak (Mirfak), is the brightest star of the constellation Perseus. The
Autumn Dipper: BTW: Markab, Alpheratz, and Enif, the nose star of the mythical winged horse, are bright navigation stars. [image] Andromeda,
Perseus, The Royal Family
Time Traveling? Pegasus
and Cassiopeia Map the Way to Andromeda Located between the Great Square Pegasus, and the smaller constellation of Cassiopeia (the red "M" or "W" pattern above) is the Andromeda Galaxy (gray swirl) where billions of stars reside. At a distance of 2.5 million light years from Earth, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is the farthest object visible to the unaided eye (a moonless night away from city lights helps). To locate Andromeda imagine a line from the brightest star in Cassiopeia to the brightest star in the Great Square of Pegasus. About 2/3rds up that line you'll find the small faint cloud of the the M31 galaxy. Note: As seen in the map above, the Great Square is the body of Pegasus and the large red dot is the nose of Pegasus, a star called Enif. Star Gazer points out that viewing Andromeda means we are looking back in time. We see it not as it exists now, but as it existed 2-1/2 million years ago, just about when the Australopithecus walked on this earth! A friend of mine says, "The past, present and future are all occurring now!" I don't know about you, but I am going to travel the night sky to the Andromeda Galaxy. This will be a future experience for me, looking for the light of the prehistoric past, and I'll be as present in the moment as I can with it. I invite you to join in on this night sky time traveling adventure. Two stars on the southeast side of Summer Triangle, Deneb and Altair, map the way to Enif, the brightest star of Pegasus. Just travel southeast of Deneb and east of Altair to find this bright nose star of Pegasus. Now try locating Fomalhault (not shown in the above image) which is a bright star that lies south of Enif above the southern horizon. More about Fomalhaut. ...
suddenly we are drawn into new realms and
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like to know your thoughts about The Night Sky ... |