Book Report #37 – Our Night Sky
Begin: 6/20/2024
Finish: 7/7/2024
Title: Our Night Sky
Author: Professor Edward M. Murphy
University of Virginia
Why I choose to read this book:
This book offers a tour of the night sky and the constellation and other objects we can see in the heaven during each of our four seasons of the year. The goal is to give us a foundation for navigating the sky with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. We will learn about the science of cosmology, astronomy and mythology of ancient people.
What I learned from this book:
The Constellation and their stars:
The Constellation boundaries have been standardizes, the shapes that represent the characters have not been finalized. Humans have associated familiar patterns in the sky with mythological figures. Such patterns are called Constellations, which means ‘ A gathering of stars”. Orion the hunter, a Constellation is visible in the Northern Hemisphere in winter. Our modern Constellation are based on 48 Greek Constellations described by Ptolemaeus in AD 150. International Astronomical Union adopted a list of 88 Constellations based on the 48 Classical Greek Constellations. In Orion the stars have distinct colors. Rigel is Blue-white, while Betelgeuse is Red-Orange. The color of a star tells us its temperature. Blue stars are the hottest, while Red stars are the coolest.
Seeing and Navigating the sky:
The faintest stars that you can see with the naked eye are a magnitude 6. With binoculars, is down to magnitude 10. And with an 8 inch telescope, the magnitude 14 objects. the faintest object seen by the Hubble Space Telescope are magnitude 30.
Using Binoculars and backyard Telescope:
You should always spend 10 minutes or more looking at an object through a telescope to let the atmosphere steadies down and you get a nice, clear view. Two things are paramount for a first telescope: ease of use and portability and quick to set up.
Observing the Moon and the Sun:
Observe the Moon for a month for the monthly cycle of the Moon’s phase. A total eclipse of the Sun maybe the most powerful and emotional astronomical event of your life.
Observing the planets with a telescope:
Because of Jupiter’s rapid rotation, new features are constantly rotating into view on the planet. It rotates in 9.8 hours, in a long winter night, it’s possible to observe the full surface of Jupiter.
Meteor Showers’, Comets, Eclipse and more:
An exceptionally bright meteor is called a fireball, and can be dazzling. It can even be seen over hundreds of mile i.e… the Peekskill meteorite. Haley’s comet has a period of 76 years, will next be visible from earth in 2061.
The Northern sky and the North Celestial Pole:
M82 is an example of a starburst galaxy undergoing a tremendous burst of star formation. Its star formation is about 10 times higher than our Milky Way. Ursa Major, the Big Bear, is the brightest and easiest Constellation to find in the Northern sky.
The Fall Sky:
You can’t just point a telescope right at an object that you can’t see, so you start at a bright star and then from a star atlas find a faint one nearby. The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away from us. And it is approaching the Milky Way at 75 miles per second, the two Galaxies will collide in about 3 billion years.
The Winter Sky:
The Pleiades, an open cluster about 435 light years from Earth in the Constellation Taurus. The most famous star in Orion is Betelgeuse – Red Supergiant, it is near the end of its life. It is far enough away that is doesn’t present any threat to Earth.
The Spring Sky:
This time of the year, the ecliptic stretches from the Northern Horizon through Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. The Virgo cluster contain 1200 – 2000 Galaxies. Th giant Galaxy M87 is at the core of Virgo Cluster and the core of M87 is a supermassive Black Hole, about 6 Billion times the mass of our Sun.
Summer Sky:
About 6 billion years from now the Sun will become a planetary Nebula. Its core will shrink into a White Dwarf Star, but the atoms in the outer layers of the Sun spread out amongst the stars and gravity will pull them into and in a star- forming region.
The Southern Sky and The milky Way:
The Southern Cross is the most beautiful sight in the sky but the Milky Way is also a spectacular sight arching across the Southern Sky.
A planisphere is a device for determining how the night sky look at any date and time. It is a powerful tool for learning how the sky changes during the night and during the year.
How will this book contribute to my success upon release:
Knowledge of the Cosmos and Constellation will improve my analytical and critical thinking skills and keep my mind sharp. This information can be shared with other communities which I hope to volunteer my services.
