Mon Aug 28, 2023 ORION AFTER MIDNIGHT
Orion the Hunter has been absent from our evening skies for a couple of months now. If you want to find him tonight, you’ll have to go out long after midnight. He rises out of the east around 3 am, and climbs up into the southeastern sky as dawn approaches. If you’d rather see Orion during the evening hours, then you’ll have to wait until October, and even then it won’t be just after sunset, but in the late evening. As the year and the seasons progress, the earth’s revolution carries us around the sun: stars behind the sun cannot be seen until the earth takes us a little farther along the orbital path, which changes the sun’s position against the background of stars. This summer’s evening skies feature such constellations as Scorpius and Sagittarius as well as Lyra the Harp, Aquila the Eagle and Cygnus the Swan.
Tue Aug 29, 2023 THE CRAB NEBULA
On the night of August 28th, 1758 the Crab Nebula was discovered with a telescope. The nebula's discoverer, Charles Messier of France, thought at first that it was a comet, which when seen far out in space, resembles a small fuzzy splotch of light. But unlike comets, this fuzzy object didn't move against the starry background. Hour after hour, night after night, the thing refused to budge. Disappointed, Messier catalogued this object as Messier #1, or M-1, and from then on, whenever he saw it, he moved on to more promising candidates. But when bigger telescopes were invented, we found that M-1, the Crab Nebula, is most impressive: it is the exploded remains of a star that went supernova. Tonight M-1 can be found, with a telescope, low in the east northeast, a little after 1 AM, behind the forward horn tip of Taurus the Bull.
Wed Aug 30, 2023 FULL MOON, BLUE MOON
Tonight the moon will once again be full, as it was on August 1st, making this the second full moon of the month. This is a little unusual, because our time period of the month comes from just one full cycle of moon phases, which takes roughly 29 and a half days to complete. But some months are longer than others, so once in a while, or “once in a blue moon” as the saying goes, we get a month with two full moons. When this happens, astronomers call the second full moon, a Blue Moon. It happens on average about once every 2.7 years. The moon won’t really be blue in color, although that sometimes happens too. If there’s been a lot of ash pumped into the atmosphere by volcanoes or brush fires, the particles can scatter enough moonlight to make it appear blue - but that happens even less often than two full moons in a month!
Thu Aug 31, 2023 LONG MONTH, BLAME CAESAR
August used to be only thirty days long; now it’s 31. Back in 46 BC, our calendar got a major overhaul when Julius Caesar re-set the beginning of spring to March 25th (it had slid over into May). He also introduced the leap year, which gave February an extra day every fourth year. Then he was assassinated (probably no connection here,) and eventually Julius’ step-son Caesar Augustus took over. To honor dear old dad, Augustus changed the name of the 31-day month Quintillis, and it became July. Then Augustus thought that he ought to have a month too, so he changed the next month, Sextillus, re-naming it August. But it had only 30 days, so the emperor tacked on another day to make it just as long as his father’s, and that’s why this month is so long, and that’s also why politicians should never be left in charge of calendars.
Fri Sep 1, 2023 EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, was born on September 1st, 1875. When he was just two years old, the planet earth passed Mars at a distance of 35 million miles, which gave astronomers a chance to view the red planet up close. In America, the US Naval Observatory Director, Asaph Hall used a 26 inch refracting telescope to discover the two moons of Mars; while in Italy, the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli made sketches of what he called “canali,” that he saw on the Martian surface. The Italian word, “canali,” means, “channel,” which Schiaparelli thought were natural features on Mars. But in America, the word got mistranslated to, “canals,” which are artificial. From that time on, a regular Mars mania swept the world, and in 1912, Burroughs’ novel, “A Princess of Mars,” launched his career.