The great Dipper and the little ladle. Credit: Bill and Sally Fletcher
Ah, spring. Finally, it is quite hot that also subtle blood observers (like me) break their binoculars and telescopes. If you are new to astronomy, however, we advise you to familiarize yourself with the constellations and bright stars that populate the night sky this season before looking through the ophular. So when you read that a treatment of the sky is in Bothenes or close to Regulus, you will already have a reference framework.
Above north -est, the most recognizable star motif of the sky – the great Dipper – is easy to identify after sunset. The Dipper is part of the third largest constellation, Ursa Major the Great Bear, but the other stars are all weak, so focusing on the great Dipper is the way to start.
Find the curve of the ladle handle. Observers with sharp eyes can say that two stars occupy this space. Arabian astronomers 10 centuries ago called this couple the horse and the pilot. The brightest of the two is Mizar. Shines with magnitude 2.2. Alcor, which is 0.2 ° in Mizar’s East-North-East, lights up at magnitude 4. This couple is a double optical, as in optical illusion. Mizar is 78.2 light years away, while Alcor is 81.2 distant light years.
Since the Big Dipper is so easy to find, amateur astronomers use it to help them locate many constellations and stars in the spring sky. For example, he uses the stars of the pointer, Dubhe and Merak, to find perhaps the most famous single star in the sky: Polaris, the north star. Track a line from the beta through Alpha Ursae Majers and extend that line about five times the distance between those two stars.
Polaris, who is about 430 light years from the earth, marks the end of the handle of the small ladle. Alternatively, the brightest star of Ursa minor is the small bear and marks the tip of the tail of the bear. Unlike the Big Dipper, however, most of the other six stars of the little Dipper are weak. You will need a dark position to see them all.
Back to the big ladle and identify his handle. Follow beyond the curve of the two -star two -star handle: Arcurus and Spica. These two luminaries illustrate some of the color differences between the stars.
Arcurus appears copper or orange color, while Spica is bright blue. The stars have different colors because nuclear reactions in their nuclei heat their surfaces at different temperatures. Arcurus is a giant star with a relatively cold surface temperature of 4300 Kelvins (7300 ° Fahrenheit). Spica is also a giant, but it is among the hottest stars. Its surface burns at 20,000 k (35,500 ° F). To make a comparison, the sun resides in the middle of the temperature interval. On its surface, a thermometer would have read 6000 K (10,300 ° F).
Arcurus is located in the constellation that Boötes the shepherd about 37 light years away. The name of the star comes from a combination of terms which means “the guard of the bear”, which indicates its position near Ursa Major the Great Bear. The main part of Boötes looks like a thin kite or a cone of ice cream. Spica is at 260 light years away in the southern stretches of the Virgin the girl. This temptular group of stars is placed for the second size between the 88 constellations.
Back to the Great Dipper. To find our next constellation, hit a hole in the bowl of the ladle, let all the water end and wait a strong roar. Mythologically, that’s what you will feel because the water has fallen on the back of Leo the lion. The main figure of Leo has two parts: a questioning point and a triangle. The question mark, or figure in the shape of a scythe, represents the front of the lion. Pointing the question mark with a distinctive blue-white color is 1.3 Regulus magnitude. Regulus is 77 light years from the earth.
A east of the scythe, a right triangle marks the lion’s back and tail. The most distant star east of Regulus is deem. It is 36 light years away, about the same as archurus. Denebola marks the tip of Leo’s tail.
About 20 ° west of Leo’s sickle is one of the weakest constellations in the sky, cancer the crab. Identify only this poor star model so that you can aim for binoculars towards its center. There you will find M44, the fabulous alvele cluster. Through 10 × 50 binoculars most observers can count three dozen stars. The Cluster Alveare is located at a distance of about 580 light years.
Under the Virgin there is the small constellation of the crow. His four mainly bright main stars and the form of “crooked box” make it easy to find. There is another way to be sure you are looking at Corvus: see if his first two stars point up towards Spica.
Spring is the ideal time to start learning the sky. Many constellations are large and useful indicators such as the great Dipper bring you to the brightest stars. Before you know, the summer will be here.
