Well, it’s only a week or so to Autumn and boy, don’t our skies sparkle. It’s a good time for sky gazing – not too hot and sticky to feel uncomfortable and not cold enough to dew up the telescope.
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“You can stay out longer at night and watch as the stars rise higher in the east and move westward over a period of just a few hours,” said Dave Reneke from Australasian Science Magazine.
You know, astronomy is the oldest of man’s sciences, but it’s also the newest. Most of what we know about the Universe now we’ve learned in recent times. So, why do star constellations matter? Well, its history I guess. We owe our knowledge of the night sky to ancient races like the Chinese, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans who made patterns out of the stars.
Many of us are familiar with the twelve constellations that define the Zodiac, but there are in fact 88 official constellations. Strangely, astronomers haven’t created many new constellations for hundreds of years.
The Constellations are fundamental for any astronomer. They act as our benchmarks in the night sky as we plot and predict the movement of planets, meteorite showers and comets.
We’ve also used them as a basic navigation system throughout history.
You can download an app on your phone called Sky Safari for a real time view of the constellations with some fascinating detail,” Dave said. “All you do is hold your Smartphone or tablet to the sky and it shows you all the constellations, planets and stars from your location”
