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STARGAZERS
SUMMER TREATS
The period between mid-January and April is one of the
best for stargazing as many interesting objects are high
in the sky and the evenings are still pleasantly warm.
Look to the skies this season with Alastair Brickell,
astronomy buff and owner of Stargazers B&B and
Astronomy Tours in Kuaotunu.
Highlights in the Sky
MILKY WAY – This is our very own galaxy and
is clearly visibleto the naked eye. It is a lovely
disk with spiral arms but what we actually see
is a glowing band of light since we are located
about 2/3 the way to the edge of the disk and
are looking back towards the central bulge. If
we could fly way above the Milky Way we would
then be able to see the lovely spiral arms with
billions of stars forming the ‘milk’.
MAGELLANIC CLOUDS – We are lucky here
in the southern hemisphere in that we can also
see two companion galaxies to our Milky Way.
These are located in the south above the Milky
Way and appear as two faint blobs, looking for
all the world just like pieces of the Milky Way
that have been torn off and placed in the sky.
These small neighbouring galaxies are only
about 20% the size of the Milky Way but are an
incredible 180,000 light years away, so when
we look at them we are seeing what they really
looked like all that time ago.
ORION – This famous constellation takes
the form of the legendary hunter in the sky.
He lies almost overhead at present and can
be recognised by the three stars that form
the handle of the ‘pot’. The middle ‘star’
of this handle is the Orion Nebula, a huge
cloud of dust and gas which is actually being
transformed into new stars. The reddish star in
Orion’s shoulder is Betelgeuse, a red supergiant
star, over 700 times the diameter of the Sun. If
you could shrink Betelgeuse down to the size of
a 10 story building, our Earth would only be the
size of the full stop at the end of this sentence.
SOUTHERN CROSS – This well-known
group of stars lies quite low on
the horizon in the Milky Way
at this time of year. It is
accompanied by two
other crosses, the
larger False Cross
above it (also in the
Milky Way) and the
Diamond Cross,
between the two others and just to the right
of the Milky Way. Just below and to the right
of the Southern Cross are two bright stars,
the Pointers, which help distinguish it from
the False Cross. The brightest of these, Alpha
Centauri, is the closest star to us (apart from
the Sun) at only 4.3 light years away.
MATARIKI / THE PLEIADES / SEVEN SISTERS
– This well known tiny cluster of stars lies at
the other end of the sky, low in the northeast.
It appears as a distinctive little knot of stars, 6
or 7 of which are visible under dark skies but it
actually contains several hundred very young
stars. Also known as Subaru to the Japanese,
this group was an important navigational
signpost in the sky for seafarers of many races
and appears as the logo of the Japanese-
made Subaru cars.
Planets Visible
JUPITER – This is the only planet visible in the
evenings and will be easiest to spot when it lies
close to the Moon in the east on January 27-28,
February 23-24 and March 21-22. It makes
a handy marker to observe the motion of the
Moon each night in the sky as it completes its
28 day orbit around the Earth.
VENUS – This is unmistakeable as it is by far
the brightest object in the pre-dawn sky in the
east. It is almost the same size as the Earth
and shines intensely during January until after
Easter as it is completely shrouded by thick
clouds and is thus highly reflective. See if you
can locate it very early in
the morning and
watch as it rises
up during the
next hour
or two
and
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Identify Constellations, Planets & Stars From Rotating Dome
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Photo by Peter Drury
gradually becomes swamped by sunlight as
day breaks.
Mercury Bay Museum Exhibit
Pop into the Museum on the Whitianga
Esplanade to see a new interactive astronomy
display in the Moa Room which shows how to
find the Southern Cross, Pleiades, Orion and
the Pointers easily in the sky.
Alastair has an impressive observatory and various
telescopes, including the largest one on the Coromandel,
for those who want to learn more about the heavens.
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Photo credit: Christopher J. Picking