The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

The frost crunched under the Ugg boots this morning and the cold crept in under the ridiculous hat as I helped myself to views of the waning moon, Sirius and Venus. In this picture Venus can be seen just above the contrail.

You may also just be able to see a star to the right of Venus and slightly higher. This is Spica in the constellation Virgo. Minutes after this picture was taken Spica had disappeared from view, drowned in the dawn’s growing light. Venus would not be bullied so easily from the sky and remained beacon bright. This is one of the easiest ways of telling that you are looking at a planet, they are usually the first to arrive and the last to leave the night party.

Saturn was visible earlier on, higher in the eastern sky than Venus or Spica, but is far from its brightest at…

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I crept outside this morning, trying not to wake the kids, and treated my self to a pre-heliacal viewing of Saturn. He was happily nestled under the star Porrima, that is to say between Virgo’s armpit and her shoulder.

If you are awake shortly before sunrise over the next couple of weeks, look just south of east. If it is clear then you should see what appears to be white star on top of a yellow one, both of them sitting not far above the horizon. The higher of the two is Gamma Virginis, or Porrima, in the constellation, Virgo. Below that will be the orangey-yellow Saturn. Neither of them are especially bright and so they will not stand out with the confidence that Jupiter is doing at night at the moment, but they should still be easy to find until the first light of dawn swamps them.

NB. Try…

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First thing this morning our bathroom was bright with diffused light from the blinds that had been filled with moonlight from the west. I put on a thick jacket and pair of Ugg boots and wandered outside. Looking up I was spoilt. The moon was indeed throwing her weight around and this can sometimes make for imperfect stargazing, but the cold air was clear enough that between the first glow of dawn in the east and the moon’s light in the west there were riches to choose from. Gemini, Leo and Virgo were high in the sky. The dark spaces between them were punctured with Saturn and the reddish Mars. In the east another tinge of red was clear in the form of Arcturus. (It was less than two months ago that I was wondering at Arcturus and Bootes in the western evening sky.) Low in the southern sky…

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Nice article on the Beeb website about the Saturn equinox. A succinct definiton of ‘equinox’ in the article too:

‘Equinox is the moment when the Sun crosses a planet’s equator, making day and night the same length.’

I forgot to mention that I delivered the manuscript of my book to my publishers, Virgin Books, three weeks ago. It is an exciting moment, a good line in the sand, but far from a terminal one. Work will continue on it until about November probably.