Bedtime Stars

If the plan survives contact with the enemy, then our younger son goes to bed at the same time, 7pm, every night. Part of his bedtime routine, after bath, milk and a story is for him to run up to one of us and demand to see the Moon. Unfortunately we are not able to oblige with a view of the Moon every evening, much in the same way that we cannot find enough cake in the universe to satisfy his desires. Our alternative tactic to cake is usually a sweet fruit snack, cheese, raisins etc. The alternative for the Moon, on a clear night will be a bright star.

Sirius is very visible on clear nights at this time to the south. Unfortunately last night it was obscured by a tree branch. Nature is obliging enough to make the stars rise 4 minutes earlier each evening and so this evening, in the absence of the moon our son did at least get a good view of the brightest star in the sky.

Never Ending Story

The incestuous relationship between the stars and mythology is nothing new, but we often overlook how constantly the relationship is rekindled or how fresh some of the stories are. The following paragraph is from Emily Winterburn's entertaining new book, 'The Stargazer's Guide'.

'In Orion these [stars] are Rigel, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix; in Canis Major there is Sirius - and even Canis Minor, which essentially consists of only two stars, has the very bright Procyon. These are familiar names, but not perhaps for astronomical reasons. Bellatrix and Sirius are probably better known now as characters in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, while Betelgeuse was the title of a Tim Burton film, albeit with a different spelling [Beetlejuice].

Go South

Twilight at either end of the day is a good time to look south this month. At dusk Jupiter is the first night object to appear, narrowly but clearly, above the southern horizon. This morning at sunrise Sirius was the last object to disappear, again it was due south. I took these two pictures at 6.30am, one looking east showing the red dawn. The other looking south. It is not a fascinating photo of Sirius but it does at least show that there is nothing else visible around it.

On a tangent, the expression 'go south' is often used to mean something is past its best. 'Tottenham seem to have gone south under Ramos' influence.' In the US it was more usually 'gone west', but even there south seems to be winning through. If you are something of a verbal sleuth there is a thorough tour of these expressions here.

An Old Friend

Bit of an early start this morning for a busy day in London, but there was consolation in a constellation. Forgive me.

I saw Orion for the first time in months and Sirius was just visible above the dawn sun. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling even though I was shivering in bare feet on cold stone. There were plenty of times mid-Atlantic when the boat was rocking in the big swell and Orion was the friend I used to steady my tired eyes on the night sky. Welcome back, hunter.