Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: Astronomical Asterisms
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents Astronomical Asterisms. In this episode we talk about the patterns in the sky both large and small as we share the guideposts to learning the night sky as well as some smaller asterisms you can see through binoculars and telescopes. We begin with the Winter Sky and it’s great Hexagon, move onto the Sickle of Leo and the Stars of Spring then the Summer Triangle before finishing in Fall with the Great Square of Pegasus plus many other patterns you can use to figure things out overhead.
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
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Transcript:
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Chris Beckett: Welcome to episode 188 of the actual astronomy podcast today we are talking astronomical aster isms.
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Chris Beckett: i’m Chris and joining me machine, we are amateur astronomers love looking up at the night sky and this podcast is for anyone else who likes going out under the stars, how are you this morning shane.
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Shane Ludtke: or i’m Okay, I suppose, how about you.
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Chris Beckett: Well i’m just as terrific as I could be.
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Okay.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s good to hear.
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Chris Beckett: So we’ve spoken about aphorisms in the past, quite a bit actually and yeah what are some of the astral just off the top of your head what are some of the astro isms that we’ve talked about on the show before who.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, probably the most well known, one that we’ve talked about is the big dipper, at least for northern hemisphere folks the big dippers very prominent.
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Shane Ludtke: You know we’ve we’ve talked about like you know the the great square Pegasus we’ve talked about the northern cross being cygnus the swan I even remember what episode, we were talking about booties and you had mentioned that it looks like a kite to you and.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: I think a lot of others, you know, see the Kate I mentioned it sort of looks like a Martini glass to me but.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and then there was the whole follow up between the Martini glass observers and the kite observers.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Chris Beckett: It was a rift in the astronomy community.
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Shane Ludtke: It was uncontrollable.
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Shane Ludtke: apologize for later on the food’s.
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Chris Beckett: Good stuff.
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Shane Ludtke: Good stuff so yeah we’ve talked about campbell’s cascade.
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Chris Beckett: A lot in the past, as well as.
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Chris Beckett: The as the coat hanger cluster up in up in bold petula and in the winter we’ve talked about orion’s belt we’ve talked about the sort of horizon where we’re in 42 is and.
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Chris Beckett: And a bunch of other things, but they basically you know what is an asterisk So these are both the most common things to see in the sky think the like these are just basically star patterns of one form or another thing.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, I what I like about astra isms as I think that this is.
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Shane Ludtke: This is probably more realistic in terms like.
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Shane Ludtke: How people perceive the sky is likely through astor isms when people see star patterns it’s likely the astor isms that they see, because these are the brightest stars up there.
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Shane Ludtke: You know the constellations you know again if you if we just talked about any like.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, say to the big dipper or the northern crosses cygnus.
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Shane Ludtke: The astor ISM is what stands out if you.
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Shane Ludtke: Try to draw out the constellation and all of the stars that make up the you know the say the great bear.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s a lot harder to see all those stars and that’s why the astro isms really stand out and and like like I say, for I think most people looking up that’s what’s relevant is the.
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Chris Beckett: answer is.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and so these asteroids and, specifically, I really like the term that it’s it’s kind of like the.to dot puzzle in the sky and really with the stars, you can dry your own lines between those but there’s kind of.
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Chris Beckett: sort of some somewhat somewhat standard sets up there, or you know commonly interpreted patterns of stars, maybe it’s the best way to put it.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah exactly yep.
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yeah.
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Chris Beckett: So these patterns of stars they kind of are differentiated a little bit from the constellations like you were saying shane so that they can be.
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Chris Beckett: You know, a grouping of stars that’s just in a region like a constellation or they can be super sets spanning many constellations.
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Chris Beckett: And some of them some of the stars in these patterns, maybe physically related as some sort of cluster or moving group and others may not have any association, so perhaps like you were saying.
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Chris Beckett: about the best known is the big dipper astra ISM, which is part of ursa major great bear that you refer to, but even like a small triangular pattern of stars, maybe somewhere within that the big dipper that that little triangle could also be an asterisk and couldn’t it.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah well and that’s what I love about aster isms is they exist at many different levels like just naked eye, we see a number of them.
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Shane Ludtke: But many times when i’m panning through you know, a field of stars you’ll come across a set of stars that make a pattern or shape to you and it’s kind of like a mini gangsterism like.
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Shane Ludtke: Sometimes you’ll come across three stars that make a symmetrical triangle other times you may come across like a mini big dipper you know, in your field of view and it’s really cool when that happens.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so i’m going to kind of address sort of the the elephant in the sky there’s going to look at the sky, but I guess.
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Chris Beckett: One but, but that is that there there’s sort of a confusing.
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Chris Beckett: Language here because we’re talking about patterns and we’re talking about constellations and in sort of in the common vernacular when constellations are spoken about it’s typically the patterns in the sky that are being referred to isn’t it.
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Shane Ludtke: For sure.
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Chris Beckett: But, technically speaking, those patterns are just asked tourism’s the constellations themselves are just the technical boundary so I.
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Chris Beckett: dug up I had made quite a few notes for this, and then I was like I need something to kind of bring this together, so I actually went to the international astronomical Union.
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Chris Beckett: website and they’ve got a great page on this, if you just simply Google it you constellations.
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Chris Beckett: They have absolutely this tremendous resource on the constellations they’ve even got charts there that they’ve created in conjunction with sky and telescope magazine.
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Chris Beckett: And so I refer people to that same and certainly i’ve spent lots of time on it and use it when i’m when i’m prepping my astronomy classes like like i’m doing right now and that’s actually sort of what spurred this on so.
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Chris Beckett: What does the IU Sam can you want, if I read this little definition that they’ve got here.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah go for it.
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Chris Beckett: OK, so the IU says originally the constellations are defined informally by the shapes made by their star patterns, but as the piece of celestial discoveries quick and in the early 20th century.
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Chris Beckett: astronomers decided it would be helpful to have an official set of constellation boundaries.
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Chris Beckett: One reason was to aid in the naming of new variable stars so that’s pretty cool that it kind of.
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Chris Beckett: It was you know the business of setting up these constellation boundaries was simply to make sure they were naming the political stars correctly.
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Chris Beckett: It goes on to say, the IU defines a constellation by its boundaries indicated by sky coordinates and not by the pattern so.
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Chris Beckett: When we talk about a constellation like technically speaking we’re talking about kind of like these invisible.
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Chris Beckett: boundaries that were created in I think like the late 1920s and early 1930s by the IU but the patterns themselves are something that’s sort of separate and independent of those.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah kind of interesting and maybe I don’t know if i’m I don’t know if i’m reading too much into it, but what I what I kind of like about it is that.
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Shane Ludtke: people’s or cultures, you know can look at the sky and determine what you know makes sense to them, based on their history, or what they see.
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Shane Ludtke: It seems odd to me that you know, a singular body would define officially what the patterns are in the sky when there’s you know different patterns that people can see if that makes sense.
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Chris Beckett: yeah like, no matter where people’s are in the world, or rather culture came from, I mean some some cultures are going to look at the same pattern of stars name even drop the same.
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Chris Beckett: But, but one group might see one animal and other group might see another animal one group might see a structure and, in some cases.
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Chris Beckett: You know, for example in the case of capricornus I know that really Chinese astronomers.
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Chris Beckett: Had a variety of different constellations and then they sort of had the overall structure, which to me, and this is like my own understanding of it i’m not a.
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Chris Beckett: Like a cultural astronomer or anything like that, but I find that really interesting because it’s like sort of the story within within the story and for some of the finer constellations like capricornus.
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Chris Beckett: Going and kind of doing some research on your own to try to you know, to understand and and look at the at the sky through those different cultural lenses can really.
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Chris Beckett: You know, create some meaning and and actually can can make it easier to identify some of the patterns than that maybe some of the dominant patterns that that you might see if you open up just like a like a standard astronomy text.
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Shane Ludtke: First yeah yeah yeah for sure.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so it can be a little bit confusing because the astro isms are patterns that help us to navigate the sky well the constellation just like technically these invisible boundaries and really any pattern of stars, large or small.
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Chris Beckett: can be connected into some sort of astro ISM or star pattern Canada.
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Shane Ludtke: Sorry just having a SIP of water there.
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Shane Ludtke: You go for you don’t.
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Shane Ludtke: Carry on Sir.
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Chris Beckett: All right, but to make it simple as amateur astronomers we think of each season is having a series of more or less like central asterisk them so shane in the in the winter sky.
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Chris Beckett: Now there was there was a bit of a discussion.
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Chris Beckett: That i’ve had some some people recently about the winter circle, or the winter g.
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Chris Beckett: Do you ever use this winter circle astra ISM if you ever seen this or are you more of a winter circle fan or winter G or winter hexagon or more of like you know you kind of start with a Ryan, and then work your way up from there person.
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Shane Ludtke: I don’t know if I really have any of that to be.
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Shane Ludtke: I just you know if i’m just go to the constellation I need I guess how about that.
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Chris Beckett: yeah that sounds good, and I think I kind of operate the same way, though, when when i’m teaching my astronomy class i’ll take this winter circle and winter circle includes several constellation includes.
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Chris Beckett: The star the brightest stars are the brightest stars and sort of each of these constellations which is capella and a rageh.
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Chris Beckett: We have caster and publix and Gemini we have proceeding candace minor, we have serious in Kansas major we have Rigel in a Ryan be available Baron.
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Chris Beckett: In Taurus and then kind of cutting back to battle goose if you if you cut that way you’ll form this this winter G, and some people do that, and some people just kind of connect.
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Chris Beckett: All the Baron back to capella and that gives them like sort of a hexagon or maybe a very broken circle and then.
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Chris Beckett: So when i’m teaching my astronomy classes, what I do is actually take this.
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Chris Beckett: Just to make a nice set of constellations disease it at least you know, regardless of what you think about a circle or G or whatever seeing these kind of form, like the core of the winter constellations is that sort of an accurate way, to put it.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so so this kind of gives us or chord constellations of the winter sky, but like usually, when I go when i’m going to start my observing really, what I want to do is.
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Chris Beckett: Is find like a Ryan and serious and candace major because to me that’s how I get oriented in the night sky, but I know through teaching astronomy classes that.
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Chris Beckett: Everybody works, a little bit differently on the night sky and people are all coming from different places.
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Chris Beckett: And sometimes just having that large circle, but sort of one of the challenges I find with the large circle is.
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Chris Beckett: Like basically right now in these evenings for us anyway capella is passing almost directly through the xena that’s the overhead point.
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Chris Beckett: And then, a series is just sort of cutting above the horizon for for for us here in the middle of Canada.
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Chris Beckett: And, and so it’s hard at least for me anyway to kind of see that breadth of sky mean that is really a huge area of sky so on a star chart I put a little star chart and our notes on a star chart it’s pretty simple to look at.
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Chris Beckett: But you know, really, I think that that one of the easier ways to do it is kind of look for that pattern of a Ryan and work your way up from there, how does How does that sound sound fair.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah orion is so prominent it’s an easy one to kind of make your anchor to begin from and I like it.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so an insider Ryan itself, we have the head of a Ryan Lando rinus we have the belt and the sword and a shield, and you know there’s even a huge think nebula around around Lambda.
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Chris Beckett: we’re not going to get into that but land itself, the head of a Ryan kind of looks like a fuzzy naked eye.
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Chris Beckett: bid and through binoculars it kind of looks like a like a bit of a scattering stars and, in fact.
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Chris Beckett: That Lambda area was first catalog is a bit of a misty spot by the likes of the Al sufi who side as a misty spot in orion’s head in amongst other observers.
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Chris Beckett: From you know really days in the formation of astronomy so Ryan also has a belt which encompasses part of an open cluster we’re moving group of stars called colon or 70 so some of the stars are part of a moving group.
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Chris Beckett: group of related stars and then some of the stars that we see in that belt the belt region are actually you know not related to another and then we also have the sword as tourism, so, so the Sir, what is the sort of orion shame, with what what makes up the sort of orion.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, probably the most prominent part of that is the the M 42 nebula the great orion nebula forms kind of the bottom tip of the sword.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and there’s there’s some stars in there there’s some some other open clusters and other nebula in there and then easily seen through a three inch telescope are the group of four relative the bright stars.
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Chris Beckett: And they make up the trapezium astra ISM or the trapezium group which is inside and 42 and those are stars that are identified as a B, C D and the order of right Ascension so.
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Chris Beckett: I kind of wrote this all and then put this So here we have an asterisk and we have, we have the winter circle, or the winter g.
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Chris Beckett: And then we have a Ryan, and then we have the sword, and then we have the nebula and the sword, and then we have the trapezium in there, so that gives us something like an asterisk and an asterisk in an asterisk in a nebula.
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thoughts.
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Shane Ludtke: Well it’s an annuity I suppose.
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Chris Beckett: I guess it’s a bit of an enigma there, so I think that’s one of the reasons why aster isms can actually be a little bit confusing because.
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Chris Beckett: They can spend many constellations like the winter circle does and covering like virtually almost like half of the entire winter sky.
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Chris Beckett: And then you can have things that you know require a small telescope using moderately high power in order to see so that creates a little bit of a confusion and a little bit of a challenge as far as understanding exactly what and astro ISM yes.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it can definitely be confusing and and we even mentioned that kind of at the start that they exist at every level, basically, like you can see them with your eyes, but you can then see them through telescopic views, and you know the patterns really never end I suppose.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so you know, and then I put a couple things in here but but maybe you, you have some in your own, but as far as like a favorite.
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Chris Beckett: You know couple winter asterisk items that people can go look at now you know, one of my favorite ones, and I wrote about this back in 2013 in the REC observers handbook is called the leaping minnow.
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Chris Beckett: In the constellation of rigor and it was actually first observed by somebody named GB hood Internet in Sicily way back in the mid 1600s.
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Chris Beckett: And he compared it to the sort of Ryan so other like the sort of a Ryan is is a need astra ISM for people to go look at.
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Chris Beckett: A lot of these listeners to this show maybe have already seen the sort of a Ryan and look at it through binoculars which is spectacular thing to see.
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Chris Beckett: But if they’re kind of looking for something maybe a little different or comparison, maybe go and take a look at the leaping minnow at you have anything that sort of is is a favorite winter asteroids and take a look at in in your binoculars or telescope or even just naked eye shame.
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Shane Ludtke: i’m naked eye yeah I kind of actually like watching the big dipper as it as it rotates through the seasons, you know and that’s all year round, to be honest.
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Shane Ludtke: You know I think we’re we’re usually used to it more so in the summertime sky because that’s what we’re looking, but it really changes in.
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Shane Ludtke: The fall and winter and spring.
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Chris Beckett: yeah it kind of starts to cut up overhead you actually get a get a pretty good view of it.
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Chris Beckett: You know, especially if you get your sleeping bag and a lounge chair Oh, you can actually go back and and look for up straight overhead almost and I, because I think read right now and into spring the the big dipper passes pretty much free through that zenith that overhead point.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it gets really high up there, and it just again it’s it’s neat to see it in different parts of the sky and almost upside down.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and and kind of what makes that neat is that it is such an easily recognizable pattern of stars and it kind of makes you feel sort of oriented and grounded, you know when you’re looking at the nighttime sky.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure.
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Chris Beckett: Very cool and kind of building on that, like maybe we’ll just move into into the spring sky with with that big dipper.
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Chris Beckett: That saucepan nascent and overhead and it can really you know begin to be that leaping point to help you identify some of the first stars, now we we’ve talked in the past about the connection between the big dipper and and boots the herdsmen so So how can you find.
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Chris Beckett: arcturus and boots using the big dipper How does that work.
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Shane Ludtke: um you sort of our crosses the handle of the big dipper.
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Chris Beckett: yeah Arc Arc to arcturus I think.
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Shane Ludtke: This.
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Chris Beckett: Is the is the set of words that people that people use and then kind of from from there, we can look at some of the other.
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Chris Beckett: You know sort of key as tourism So these are kind of just sort of parts so, though.
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Chris Beckett: We see the big dipper is kind of like that main part of ursa major like you were saying earlier, that the bear constellation itself.
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Chris Beckett: has a lot of things are stars around another you can trace the moat from a darker side, even from my life through the back yard, I can see, most of the stars, are all of the stars in the big dipper and see all the stars.
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Chris Beckett: In that mean K patterning boots are both days and and then there’s there’s another.
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Chris Beckett: set of astro isms which are really prominent in the in the spring sky that are starting to come up.
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Chris Beckett: There actually well placed in the morning sky now, and that is the sickle of Leo and the diamond shape in virgo and and sort of between the big dipper.
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Chris Beckett: boots and the diamond and virgo and the sickle and Leo kind of that sort of forms like that means set of springtime aster isms as far as as far as I was kind of looking at it in the notes for the show.
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Shane Ludtke: You know the the circle of Leo is very prominent for me and that that stands out every year.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and now, some people will connect and I could be wrong in this but, but you know I mean people can connect any any of the stories, they want to form any patterns, they wish.
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Chris Beckett: But some people will connect regulus, which is in Leo over to arcturus then down to speaker in in virgo and that will give them a bit of a of a spring triangle as well, but I don’t know, have you ever heard that are seeing people talk about that one.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no, that one’s new to me.
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Chris Beckett: yeah I haven’t really seen or heard of that either, and the only thing I can think that that is a little bit handy for is it can be handy for finding things like that coma Baron ISIS which sits between.
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Chris Beckett: Leo and boots and has this beautiful open cluster they’re called the colon there and ISIS you know and it’s it’s this beautiful cluster which, which has a history we’ve actually talked about that quite quite a bit before so we’re not going to go into it too much, but.
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Chris Beckett: You know, back in the second century ED person named Tony he developed like you know you know sort of was building upon previous astronomers and come up with.
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Chris Beckett: a subset of about 48 patterns of stars sort of sort of tony’s 48 early constellations and inside of coma baronesses he actually talked about something that looked like an Ivy league.
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Chris Beckett: Within that coat very nice to start cluster and you know when I was, I was drawing it about five or six years ago.
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Chris Beckett: And I thought, who I wonder if I can sort of find that pattern of stars and.
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Chris Beckett: And you know it’s it’s weird because I had drawn the stars, but I hadn’t tried to you know draw them in in in an attempt to replicate the I believe until I got my my sketches at home.
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Chris Beckett: And and very easily I was able to draw a pattern, and then I don’t know i’m not a horticulturalist I don’t know what an Ivy league looks like, and so I kind of connected what I thought.
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Chris Beckett: You know where the most dominant stars and sure enough when I compared that that sketch to to an Ivy league sure Sure enough, it looks pretty close to what, and I believe looks like pretty neat.
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Shane Ludtke: Lady told that worked odd.
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Chris Beckett: yeah What about what about you shane any any patterns or aster isms that that really stick out for you in the spring sky different general look at that little one it’s near and one of four, though.
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Shane Ludtke: No, I don’t I don’t think well I probably have I don’t know if i’ve really taken note of it, though, to be honest.
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Chris Beckett: yeah there is there’s a little it almost looks like a spaceship and it’s sort of in and around, including sort of stars called strewth 1659 and sort of those nearby stars, so this is, this is a pattern of stars that when you’re coming off of corvus and you’re looking for the galaxy called.
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Chris Beckett: Which is a really beautiful galaxy and through larger telescopes you can actually see this dust lane.
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Chris Beckett: So it’s a very famous a galaxy for amateurs to go and look at on the way up to that there’s actually this little grouping of stars now some people say it looks like an arrow.
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Chris Beckett: Some people say it looks like a like a klingon battle cruiser or something like this.
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Chris Beckett: But yeah definitely it’s a it’s a funny little pattern and it’s sort of been recognized as a funny little pattern going back you know, since people were first.
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Chris Beckett: You know, exploring that region of the sky, because I know when in tw webs 1859 edition of his celestial objects for common telescopes he refers to a previous observer as having you know note of this is a funny.
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Chris Beckett: bit of stars that are together, and you know so that observation is is 200 years old anyway.
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Shane Ludtke: We go cool.
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Chris Beckett: cool yeah yeah pretty neat all right anything else to add on the Spring sky.
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Shane Ludtke: No, sir.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, moving ahead we’ll get into the summer schedule a warm up way sure was looking for the summer sky when when I was reading this up.
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Chris Beckett: You know this past week, so in the in the summer, the main pattern others this mean big pattern overhead that we teach people merch doing public outreach in the summer and what is that pattern chain.
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Shane Ludtke: The summer triangle, I believe.
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Shane Ludtke: Your refrigerator yes, yes.
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Chris Beckett: yeah exactly So this has those three bright stars vegan lira identity and cygnus altera in a quill and when we connect those that that forms this massive triangle overhead and.
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Chris Beckett: overhead like up into almost that overhead point which which be called the zenith point and no matter where you are in the earth there’s a point directly overhead that’s called the zenith and in the summer.
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Chris Beckett: When we go to do outreach, of course, as you know, shane it’s it’s bright pretty late so we’re kind of kicking around waiting for Eric with.
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Chris Beckett: With sundance with like 100 people or so waiting to look through a telescope and so it’s always a great exercise to see who can kind of pull out those three stars for seems like people really get into that.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah and it’s it’s always surprising even to me, sometimes how big it is you know when you see it on a star charted it I don’t think the scale is comprehend it, as well as seeing it in the sky and it’s a pretty big swath.
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Chris Beckett: yeah again I kind of struggled almost to see the whole thing in one go, I think I can just kind of barely see the whole summer triangle, if I sort of sit back and recliner on a beautiful warm summer evening.
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Chris Beckett: And look up into that region of sky you know I kind of think that I think I can get most of that bit of the sky sort of into my into my field of view at the same time.
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Chris Beckett: I kind of struggled a little bit with the with the winter circle to do that, because the winter circle is, I think the mentor circles like four or five times as large or something like that yeah cool alright so Moving on, we also have the keystone of Hercules.
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Chris Beckett: Now, which is just sort of to.
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Chris Beckett: The to the west of the summer triangle and, and that is such a unique pattern, I mean just really does kind of look like a keystone in, and do you know what a keystone ends.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it’s used an arch ways and basically it’s the like it’s the important stone structurally it’s the important stone that keeps like an Arc or an arch.
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Shane Ludtke: Stable like cancer from collapsing.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and it’s it’s just sort of held in there by pressure so you have.
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Chris Beckett: Had that are to the archway and then.
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Chris Beckett: The last stone they drop in actually creates like pressure in a certain way that that prevents that stone arch from from falling and certainly if you.
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Chris Beckett: go over to you know certain regions of the world, you know, these were used all over the world, you can you can find some of the stone arch way still intact that have been there for millennia, you know seemingly.
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Shane Ludtke: mm hmm yeah yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: And igloos use a similar principle to with.
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Chris Beckett: Oh, really.
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Chris Beckett: yeah oh cool yeah well that makes that makes a lot of sense.
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Chris Beckett: So let’s uh you know, and I always thought that was really cool that here we have the keystone of Hercules which, for us, anyway, know for other regions of the world is going to it’s going to pass during.
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Chris Beckett: The past, you know different different parts of the sky, but for us anyway pretty much passes through that you know the point that overhead point, so we have this beautiful arching.
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Chris Beckett: You know sphere of stars in the summer, and here we have.
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Chris Beckett: The keystone sitting right up there, almost almost towards that overhead point it’s almost like you know it is in a way, almost like keeping up that celestial sphere, you know I know that’s sort of you know sort of.
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Chris Beckett: Some nebulous language there, but you know it is kind of any kind of a neat aspect of that pattern.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah it is for sure.
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Chris Beckett: yeah very cool so kind of moving on.
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Chris Beckett: You know, one of the main reasons why we might want to identify pattern stars as well, it can just be beautiful to look at there might be some cultural significance.
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Chris Beckett: And typically there is cultural significance, with some of the smaller ones, though we might be just looking at.
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Chris Beckett: You know, particular patterns that are visible through a telescope, though, but with the keystone of Hercules you can actually use that pattern, because you know that on.
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Chris Beckett: One of those sides there’s the M 13 globular star clusters, so you can find that pattern, you can see, with your I easily from a dark sky and then you can use your binoculars kind of trace out the pattern as you’re doing so you’re going to find.
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Chris Beckett: You know, really big fuzzy spot and that fuzzy spot is a globe, with their star cluster and you might even be able to see that, with your any to diamond sort of pull your eyes away from the binoculars.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah absolutely.
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Chris Beckett: down towards the south, we have the tea pot of sagittarius and I just love the teapot of sagittarius because one I do enjoy a good cup of tea, as I know you do as well shane.
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and
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Chris Beckett: Yes, you always get excited about that as well, and then there’s there’s a little teaspoon that just just above it, which is super cute and then coming out of the spelled of the T pod.
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Chris Beckett: sort of towards the Northeast we have the steam sort of looks like a bit of a misty nebulous glow coming right out of that point and that just happens to be the Milky Way so it almost seems like the Milky Way is emanating esteem, from the start of the teapot.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah for sure it doesn’t it’s just such a beautiful area of the sky to put binoculars or telescope on or even naked if you’re under a dark enough sky, so the seeing the teapot always makes me happy because that’s just such a beautiful place to observe.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and yeah when once you can find that you can use that like you were saying you can use that pattern.
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Chris Beckett: Of sagittarius that tea pot, which is really prominent for us anyway it’s rate on the horizon, easy to see a group of stars, I can even see it here from the city.
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Chris Beckett: and use it to orient myself and because I can’t see the Milky Way with me I needed I hear from the city, but what I can do is I can find that pattern come off the spoke put my binoculars.
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Chris Beckett: On to that region of the sky and start scanning up, and I know that i’m in that.
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Chris Beckett: main Milky Way region, and I can start to see some nebulous and clusters and that sort of thing and that’s kind of how we use those astro isms those patterns of stars as a leaping off point to start looking at deep sky objects like maybe listen star clusters, a super handy.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah absolutely.
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Chris Beckett: Speaking of which do you have any favorite.
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Chris Beckett: let’s see aster isms are patterns of stars in the summer sky Maybe you can see through binoculars.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah the the same one you’ve noted here and what we’ve talked about already, which is the coat hanger it’s a it’s an awesome mass tourism I think it’s really neat.
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Shane Ludtke: And you can see that naked eye to under the right conditions so that’s kind of neat as well.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and the and this asterisk some of the coat hanger cluster it’s really cool because it looks, just like the name coat hanger cluster.
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Chris Beckett: You know, make you think of a coat hanger and that’s exactly what it looks like through a pair of binoculars which is super fun to show people memory at a star party and we put a.
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Chris Beckett: Low power small telescope on it and then people look and we say this is the coat hanger cluster and people are blown away by that kind of almost in a similar respective when we show them the Rings of Saturn.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah exactly.
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Chris Beckett: yeah very cool so to find this though you actually can can look at previous observer records like from Al sufi or from Tony and they the I think analyses records he put that the coat hanger is about or the misty spot in in this region of the skies he referred to it as is rate between.
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Chris Beckett: lira and acrylic and so, if you follow that line from Vega to i’ll tear it’s about two thirds of the way to i’ll tear along that line, and so, if you just take your binoculars and you scan on that straight line from.
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Chris Beckett: Vega to altair as you get closer to two i’ll tell you actually come across this this little pattern of stars that looks just like a coat hanger in the sky very cool.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah it is.
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Chris Beckett: And it’s also very nice to us like somebody guidance from you know well over a century ago, you know millennia ago really.
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Chris Beckett: Very cool alright, moving on to the the autumn sky sort of our last kind of stop along can we’re just trying to sort of cover.
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Chris Beckett: off, you know sort of the main astro isms in in all of the sky people can refer to this in the future, we will dig a little deeper and astro isms in the future, but.
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Chris Beckett: The the autumn sky has the beautiful w of casio being cassiopeia near the zenith so so she and I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a chair when I look at cassiopeia so often referred to as cassiopeia chair, so are you a chair or a w person.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, in the summertime i’m a w person, but at other points in the year I.
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Shane Ludtke: I can see the Chair it.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s still.
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Shane Ludtke: You know it’s still like a you know, a three to me or an e sometimes but like when it’s on its side, I can see, I can see the Chair it kind of makes sense to me.
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Shane Ludtke: But again, you know it depends what time of the year, but cassiopeia does change.
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Chris Beckett: yeah depending on depending on its orientation.
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Shane Ludtke: Yes, yeah.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah So for me I almost always see cat the cassiopeia as tourism as a as a w sort of that mean figure in cassiopeia I see that as as a large w I think it was I think sort of after the big dipper and Ryan, and maybe maybe boots or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: You know, I was able to identify cassiopeia as a w but oftentimes people identify typically the big dipper first one, the learning the nighttime sky and then sort of opposite the big dipper.
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Chris Beckett: Opposite the big dipper kind of moving along in the direction, opposite the pole star is cassiopeia so.
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Chris Beckett: Typically, what a lot of people are getting going in astronomy we’ll do is we’ll identify the big dipper okay.
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Chris Beckett: Now I know that what’s The next thing I want to learn well if you can find cassiopeia sort of, on the other side of polaris and the other side of the north star.
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Chris Beckett: Now you found the big dipper you found the north star you found cassiopeia and then you can really start branching out in both directions and really beginning to learn the whole night sky think that’s actually a pretty easy way for people to begin.
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Chris Beckett: Learning the star patterns in the sky.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah definitely.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so it’s really you know it’s really easy to see that w, though, and I just love it it just it just feels like home when I look when I look at cassiopeia because I can always see it, no matter where I am in Canada.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah you know, and one of the things that i’m kind of bad for is because, like cassiopeia big dipper like all of that part of the sky it’s always there for us, I sometimes don’t spend enough time observing it because I always think Oh, I can do that next week, next time, whatever.
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Shane Ludtke: And the one summer, this is just before the pandemic, I think the last free summer that we’ve had and.
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Shane Ludtke: That was when I think he would written an article on cassiopeia and then one night in the summertime and grasslands, we just spent the entire night.
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Shane Ludtke: Observing stuffing cassiopeia which i’ve never done i’ve never dedicated that much time to that part of the sky during the summer, and it was awesome it was really fun.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so just just to kind of fill people in what I do is every year I write a little bit with with with my friend randall and then whoever the editor of the.
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Chris Beckett: Of the REC observers handbook is and we include bit of history about region of the sky, we include a few aster isms.
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Chris Beckett: whole pile of deep sky objects that you can see there and then we kind of distribute that that really so that’s that’s what you’re doing, but when i’m creating those what I like to do is is bring together.
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Chris Beckett: kind of like a bit of a list and go out with my friends to observe that list, so I think I think that year you myself Mike rick maybe there was somebody else there.
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Chris Beckett: And we all kind of give it a go and went looked at at the stuff that I kind of selected.
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Chris Beckett: and its really helped sort of to to evolve, you know what we’re all looking at times and it’s really fun to kind of work in a bit of a group project, you know together as we drive those nice warm summer evenings.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah no I get it it sort of motivated me to look at a part of the sky that I just often neglect for for no good reason other than that it’s always there.
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Chris Beckett: yeah exactly the main constellation in the autumn sky, though, for me, anyway isn’t isn’t cassiopeia.
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Chris Beckett: it’s the it’s the great square of Pegasus it’s huge it’s again, you know, like you were saying earlier shane with with the triangle, and I was saying, with the winter.
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Chris Beckett: circle, it is a huge area almost bigger than you can imagine, even when you see it on the on the chart and I looked it up, so I was, I was thinking like how big is it and just just according to like a quick Internet search it’s over 1100 square square decrease.
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Shane Ludtke: Well yeah that’s that’s massive really.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and I think like on its shortest side it measures just about a dozen degrees across then on the longer sentence it’s like 17 and a half or 18 degrees, or something like that it really is.
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Chris Beckett: quite large and it can it can be a little bit difficult because the stars that make up the great square aren’t necessarily like super bright there’s some of the brightest stars in the autumn sky.
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Chris Beckett: But they’re not really bright stars like we have when it comes to like the winter circle or or the summer triangle, or some of the other patterns that that might be more prominent and easier to pull out.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah I like the host seth is the host of surface in the fall as well that one always stands out to me quite a bit.
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Chris Beckett: Okay excellent yeah.
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Chris Beckett: Sorry, just like really quick, but the script Pegasus The other thing that can make it a little bit confusing is the top left or the north Eastern star is alpharetta, which is actually part of the constellation of andromeda so.
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Chris Beckett: The four stars that make the big Square, only three of them are sort of in that proper sort of constellation boundary of Pegasus but the pattern itself for the square of Pegasus actually begins to include stars, you know in another constellation the constellation of andromeda.
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Chris Beckett: And like I said earlier, like a referred to earlier in many cultures going back you know through through the millennia.
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Chris Beckett: You know, different cultures would include.
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Chris Beckett: You know, different stars from different constellations and go in that direction and that can really be an interesting path to.
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Chris Beckett: To do some some of your own personal research from you know and.
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Chris Beckett: You know, try to figure out, you know some of those over and different constellations maybe them what are.
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Chris Beckett: Just sort of the dominant ones that are in the software and the history books and I think there’s even software now and there’s different resources that are becoming more and more available for people to.
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Chris Beckett: to explore some of those some of those patterns were just kind of keeping this.
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Chris Beckett: A little bit simple here just just while we work through this, I just want to mention that again because a lot of different cultures have a lot of different patterns.
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Chris Beckett: And some of the different patterns here, though just sort of in in our own software that we have is right below that grade Square, we have the surplus of pisces.
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Chris Beckett: And then, just to the right or just to the west of that we have sort of the sideways why.
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Chris Beckett: Of the water jar in aquarius and I don’t know I don’t know why shane but I really love that sideways by.
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Chris Beckett: Of the water jar in aquarius I feel like even though those stars aren’t really bright the bright enough that you see, you can see them.
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Chris Beckett: From the city here, where I live, anyway, and they really jumped out to me and I just love looking at that sideways why of the water jar just again it’s one of those little patterns that unique and it really makes me feel like i’m at home and sky in the sky.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’s an interesting one, that one doesn’t resonate with me as strongly actually but you know it’s It is evident that’s for sure.
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Chris Beckett: yeah now we’re looking at it, I think the last time we were observing we’re actually looking at that and i’m like.
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Chris Beckett: Oh there’s the water jar and you’re like where is it like pointing it out you’re like yeah i’m like no it’s the water jar shane and you’re like yeah more of a cassiopeia chair guide to nine kind of thing.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah.
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Chris Beckett: Good stuff all right when it comes to looking at.
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Chris Beckett: Some smaller astro isms through your binoculars what I think I know what the entrance to this is going to be, but what’s your favorite binocular asteroids and to hunt down in the autumn sky king.
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Shane Ludtke: Who well you think so what’s your guests for me.
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Chris Beckett: I was, I was gonna say it’s probably going to be campbell’s cascading kamala parlous.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah it’s pretty hard to argue with that one, especially with the kind of the local ties to Father lucien Campbell who.
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Shane Ludtke: You know I guess was sort of the discoverer of that or at least brought it to prominence and yeah and it’s really cool to look at I think it’s a beautiful chain of stars.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so there’s this beautiful chain up in Canada part of this, which is not the northern camel is the northern draft, so we always have to get that straight and.
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Chris Beckett: yeah it just looks like this beautiful cascade of stars and then it pulls down into the beautiful open cluster ngc 1302 and yeah so it was found by Father Lucian Campbell who is.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, he was an observer, who lived just really a few kilometers from where you live shane and and he was using his seven my 35 binoculars he hit a variety of other telescopes but in an observatory, but he was just using this binoculars one eight and scanning through.
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Chris Beckett: kimball parlous which is sort of a one of the lesser known constellations and one of the feeder constellations and.
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Chris Beckett: He happened upon this really brilliant and grouping of stars that kind of ends up in this in this open cluster and then he wrote into Walter Scott Houston and sky and telescope magazine and and an end up being called the campbells cascade which is just sort of a beautiful.
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Chris Beckett: Beautiful pattern of very colorful stars and then the runner up for me, anyway, is the is the cosmic question mark in the head of status.
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Chris Beckett: Reading the headsets there’s this sort of question mark pattern that that looks kind of neat so so that’s sort of our tour of an asterisk a bit of an explanation of what astro isms are.
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Chris Beckett: And a tour of some of the larger cornerstone astro isms in each of the seasons, as well as some of our favorite binocular.
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Chris Beckett: asked her isms that people can can look at if if they so choose So do you have anything to to add the scene up some resources to put in, but maybe you have some other comments or other astra isms that you’d like to raise people’s attention.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no we’ve covered off everything that I was going to talk about i’m good.
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Chris Beckett: Alright sounds good so some of the resources is the astronomical League has a great.
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Chris Beckett: aphorisms certificate program I know a lot of the listeners are members of the Al or the astronomical League and they created that with Sue French to the mode three years to create it.
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Chris Beckett: I haven’t really worked through it i’m not too much about this person myself but.
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Chris Beckett: I have looked at that quite a bit i’ve pulled out a few of the astro isms they’ve had in their over the years and in gun taken a look at things I really enjoy reading anything that Sue French has been involved in think she she’s a tremendous observer.
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Chris Beckett: star clusters by arsenal and hines and so in the star clusters book they actually compile you know, in the book is is just for 20 years old now but.
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Chris Beckett: it’s really not at update the lot of the stuff doesn’t change too much, but they’ve compiled a list of all the prominent star clusters and.
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Chris Beckett: Ask tourism associations that have been discovered by professionals and amateurs would like, and I know, there was the deep sky hundreds group that was pretty active for a while trying to ferret a lot of this stuff out.
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Chris Beckett: You know a lot of different observers, you know over the world is going to start listing some but but it gets pretty long as well.
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Chris Beckett: And if you are interested in that sort of information Sue french’s book deep sky wonders and phil harrington’s tour in the universe through binoculars are great resources for finding out more information about.
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Chris Beckett: Some of those asteroids and smaller astro isms that have been discovered by other observers from from all over the world over the years, which is pretty cool.
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Chris Beckett: So if you have any resources that you want to.
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Shane Ludtke: know when it comes to ask tourism’s entire well yeah maybe one in your planetarium software, you can often turn on asterisk.
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Shane Ludtke: And like sky safari which you and I both use and talk about a.
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lot.
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Shane Ludtke: You can like in those kind of what’s up tonight part of sky safari like you can you know see which planets are visible and the best clusters and all this stuff there is an option for asked tourism so.
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Shane Ludtke: If you’re curious go in there, because when you turn on the astra ISM switch yeah it’s like holy cow there’s a lot of stuff.
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Shane Ludtke: That is sort of officially documented it’s kind of neat.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah that that’s really cool and into to conclude though we’re kind of wondering what people are looking at are people looking at ad astra isms are people just looking at those main patterns, or people just using their go to telescopes these days.
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Chris Beckett: And yeah if anybody wants we’d be fascinated to to know.
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Chris Beckett: What astra isms you, you are looking at, are you looking at smaller astro isms like the coat hanger.
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Chris Beckett: Or have you found like your own astro isms that you can send us an email, and let us know your favorite asterisk or anything that you found out there in the sky that are.
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Chris Beckett: really interesting patterns or dots that are that you’re connecting together, you can send us those observations and details to actual actual astronomy or addresses actual astronomy at gmail COM and thanks again, and thanks everybody for listening.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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