Looking at the Sky

Thursday, April 8, 2010, 06:00 Zulu

Finally a nice day and I forgot to go outside to make some observations for my sky blog until just now. Finally at 9:10pm local time I step outside and look at the sky, ever so briefly. Unfortunately, I live on a piece of property that is in the middle of trees, well it's more like a forest. I do not have a good view of the sky, except straight up.

What did I observe? The big dipper was straight above me, I think the star called Dubhe was right at my zenith. Dubhe is the star that defines the upper rear part of the wagon. According to my MS WorldWide Telescope, this is a circumpolar star, meaning this star never sets in our latitude.

Next I noticed an orange looking heavenly body, I think it was Mars. The position of Mars was at an altitude of about 60 degree and an azimuth of SW. According to my WorldWide Telescope, that is about where Mars was supposed to be. Using the virtual telescope I was amazed how difficult it was to have a close look at Mars. Zooming in on Mars without a tracker made it impossible to stay with it. Because of the Earth’s rotation Mars moved out of view in flash. But that’s why we have technology.

The clip on the right is where Mars was, right where the cross hair is. According to my planisphere that is in the constellation of cancer, but I did not see that upside down Y. The stars tracing out the Y are Acubens and Altarf on the top of the Y, Asellus Australis in the center, and Iota Cancri on the base. Apparently there is nothing special about those stars, just four twinkling stars between 100 and 300 light years away from us.

Then the clouds came and covered up the spectacle.

Next time I need to get out in an open field to make better observations. By the way, check out MS WorldWide Telescope. It is a free down load, and works incredibly well. It is an amazing tool. Some of the pictures and how one can explore the sky, it is just incredible. Go check it out, it is worth it!