Despite it being crazy warm, our A/C system for the building has not been turned on, which meant it was almost 90 degrees inside yesterday evening. When I noticed I was actually starting to sweat just sitting there, out of desperation, I decided to go out onto the balcony, where there was no breeze but the air was at least somewhat cooler. It was only just starting to get dark, but there was something very, very bright in the sky (our balcony faces southwest), which I called Robert out to see. He set up his telescope and voila, it's Jupiter and its 4 largest moons. There was something just awesome and thrilling about seeing the moons of this distant planet (first identified by Galileo in 1609-1610 after he made improvements to his telescope) - they're obviously not nearly as mind-bogglingly distant as any of the stars we see, but something about the very rarity and unexpectedness of it was really great. So I was right - it was, indeed, much cooler outside (especially with a telescope set up).
As it got later, some of the big stars became visible. First Sirius (the dog star), of course - though we didn't immediately know what it was until Orion became visible and gave us an orientation. (Orion is my favorite, probably because of how big and easy to see it is, how much it really looks like what it's supposed to be, and how you can use it to orient yourself.) Because of light cloud cover, only the lower right "foot" of Orion was bright but Orion is so distinctive that one foot and a sense that there might be a couple other stars here and here was enough for it to be identifiable. I shocked myself by remembering (though it felt like guessing) that the lower right star is Rigel (which I confirmed when I brought out my star finder). (Robert had to admit being impressed but clearly thinks it's related to my liking the muppet character Rygel from Farscape, which is quite possibly true).
Over the next 45 minutes or so, despite cloud cover and the fact that we were in the middle of a major city sitting on our balcony with a very limited amount of open sky available to us, we saw all of Orion (and yes, the double stars in the belt do look really cool in a telescope), Sirius, Procyon (the bright star in Canis Minor), a star in Gemini (I could never decide which one because there was only one visible), and Aldebaran (in Taurus) as well as Jupiter and a satellite that was trying to mimic a planet.
By the way, we are expected to get some relief from the heat by next Thursday or Friday, which I will welcome gladly. The average high for yesterday's date (March 17) is 37 degrees. We set a record yesterday of 81 degrees. Fucking hell. We also set record highs for the date last Friday, Wednesday, Sunday, and Saturday (and tied or came within 3 degrees the other days of the week). Robert reminded me that the summer I moved to NC was also exceptionally hot and set records all summer long. So perhaps this joins my other super-hero / super-villain qualities (no doubt the voice-over on my TV show would say, "They call me the Heatbringer").
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4 comments:
Can one always see Jupiter and the 4 moons or is it only at certain times? How lucky you were to be able to see so much of the sky so clearly.
My understanding is that Jupiter (and its moons) moves through the Zodiac (across the sky) over the course of years. I'm not sure if it's ALWAYS visible from everywhere, but for example, I found where a chart showing where it will be (visibly) for all the months from 2011-2014.
Orion is my favorite too! And his big dog. I especially like how his position and timing vary according to the time of year in ways that I understand, so that somehow looking at him confirms the season and/or time of day.
Our satellite turns out to have been Venus, which was extremely close.
Jupiter is often visible at some point during the night, so long as it isn't behind the sun to us. The four moons are typically visible when Jupiter is visible (with a telescope or, some places, powerful binoculars), unless one of them is either in front of or behind the planet.
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