Stargazing
This ebook has been optimised for tablets.This fully illustrated one-stop guide will show you how to look at and understand the night sky. To make your progress easier, it comes with colour illustrations and expert advice throughout.Full colour charts, photographs and illustrations show the planetary motions and offer information on astrological events, while detailed diagrams help to explain the movement across the sky and what stars are visible on any given day of the year.From the ‘Zen of observing’ to extraordinary phenomena, this book offers every stargazer, whether aspiring, amateur or experienced, a comprehensive look at the night sky.Contents include: introducing the sky; binoculars and telescopes; the solar system; deep space; recording the skies; star charts and celestial showpieces.
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Astronomy is the oldest science â written records of celestial events go back thousands of years. But people have gazed at the stars with wonder and awe ever since the first sparks of human consciousness flickered in the minds of our distant ancestors.
There is plenty to see in the night sky. Some things, like the constellations, are permanent fixtures; others, like the planets, move and change over time. A few phenomena, like aurorae, are spectacular but fleeting.
Stargazers can forget about Earthly worries and hitch a ride on celestial photons.
Whether you use binoculars or a telescope, or even if you have no optical aid at all, there are enough sights in the night skies to keep the stargazer enthralled for a lifetime. This book, written for active stargazers eager to discover the universe with their own eyes, covers literally everything there is to be seen in the heavens, day and night.
Seeing the skies
So much can be seen in the skies without optical aid. Every stargazer ought to spend time learning the layout of the skies, the position of the main constellations and the names of the brightest stars. This can only be achieved by actually standing under a starry sky and tracing the constellations with the aid of a star chart. The learning process cannot be completed in a single evening. During the course of a year, the heavens appear to revolve slowly around the Earth, and apart from those constellations near the celestial pole, their visibility is seasonal. Believe it or not, there are advantages to living in a light polluted city. Since only the brighter stars can be seen, the skies appear less crowded, and the patterns of the main constellations are easy to trace. Under a dark rural sky, the heavens can appear so congested with stars that even experienced stargazers can become somewhat disorientated! Nothing stirs the soul more than the grandeur of the night skies seen from beneath a pristine dark sky.
Comet Hale-Bopp dazzles in the skies above Stonehenge, an ancient megalithic construction among whose purposes may have been to keep track of the yearâs celestial events.
{Paul Sutherland}
Take a pair of sparkling eyes
Binoculars will reveal much more of the skies, and the impression of three dimensions in space â although wholly illusory â can be striking. The cratered surface of the Moon is revealed in all its glory through the smallest binoculars. Star colours are especially noticeable, and hundreds of double stars and deep sky objects, as well as countless glorious starfields, can be viewed.
Optic tubes and light buckets
With their larger light-gathering ability, telescopes will allow detailed, magnified views of the Moon and planets, as well as views of very faint objects like distant galaxies and nebulae.
Some transient phenomena, such as meteors and aurorae, are best enjoyed without any optical aid. Other phenomena, such as lunar eclipses, benefit from the low magnification afforded by binoculars. Certain phenomena require a telescope to be seen at all â for example, the sight of Jupiterâs Great Red Spot transiting that planetâs flattened cloud-streaked disk. The universe contains a panoply of glorious spectacles of varying magnitudes â whether it be the meteoric burnup of a dust grain 80km above our heads or the sudden death of a star 80 million light years away. Itâs all there, waiting to be enjoyed.
Brilliant Jupiter shines near the Beehive star cluster in Cancer.
{Peter Vasey}
People have been systematically watching the skies and recording celestial events for at least 6,000 years. A lot has happened during that time, and human notions about the universe â influenced at first by religion, and in the last few centuries by science â have changed dramatically.
Cultures the world over have given rise to an amazing variety of cosmologies which granted the untouchable occupants of the heavens â the Sun and Moon, the stars and planets â a variety of supernatural powers. The gods of the sky were real personalities; each looked different and each moved through the sky in its own unique way. Most powerful among the sky gods were the Sun and the Moon, sometimes interpreted as a competing pair of deities because of the phenomena of eclipses.
