Stargazing

I've been doing "naked-eye astronomy" these past three days.

Each of my nightly observations of the stars lasted about 15 minutes. I checked for clear skies, then bundled up warmly, grabbed my PDA with Planetarium 2.4 installed and headed out either to my front sidewalk or onto the backyard deck. Then I looked up, matched the PDA screens to the skies and just marvelled at the stuff I saw.

Regardless of surrounding light pollution from nearby cities and street lamps (one bright lamp unfortunately in front of my home), I can see enough objects up there to maintain my interest. I can see the moon. I can see the stars. I can see the planets! I've spotted Polaris (the North Star), Mars, Venus and Saturn with certainty. Jupiter and Mercury are also visible with the naked eye. I'll check out Jupiter tonight. However, spotting Mercury may be more tricky; because it is so close to the sun (imagine looking in the sun's direction and picture Mercury's plane of orbit), it is only visible just after sunset or before sunrise and always close to the horizon.

I think it was those "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer" segments on PBS that added to my interest. That guy was so into it (like Mr. Ray from Pixar's Finding Nemo). Excited at everything up there and telling us what to look for. I tried looking for things then, but just couldn't because it was too general and I couldn't be sure of the objects I saw. But then the PDA came along and made it all exact and more personal for me; it made my observations more interactive as it could tell me in real time what I'd be seeing from where I was standing--I could zoom in, zoom out, pan the skies and see in elapsed time how the objects would move across my view. Looking at the screen and then looking up was like looking at a U2 concert on your TV and then turning around to find that the music event was happening live right behind you! It was just neat that things were matching up--calculations matching real time.

This is only the beginning, so I'm quite eager to find out what else I could see during the upcoming clear nights.

"Keep looking up!" is what Jack Horkheimer would always say when signing off his program.

Thanks, Jack. I will.