+A.M.D.G.+
Navigate the night sky
12 September 2007 at 20.19When I was a kid staying with my family in the Italian countryside (away from the city), I would love to stare at the night sky. I’d trace out the constellations and fantasize about the Greek heroes they portrayed.
Recently, I stumbled across a short tutorial on how to navigate the night sky. It’s not extremely detailed, but it’s enough to help you identify which direction is North, which is always a good place to start.
I think I much prefer the constellational mythology to the astronomical science. Take for example a modern map of the heavens:
Assuredly, it pales in comparison to the older edition:
The DeepSky Atlas has a great archive of constellations and their stories.
Of course, even the great myths cannot surpass the beauty of Space itself. The Hubble Heritage Gallery has a wonderful collection of images for your viewing enjoyment. Looking at such images reminds me that we humans are so infinitesimally small and seemingly meaningless…. Yet the same God who created Everything humbled Himself by becoming Man. Non sum dignum!
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Comment by latinmass1983 — 13 September 2007 at 09:31
Well, that was a lot of fun!
Comment by alessandro — 1 November 2007 at 21:52
On a related note, you might enjoy trying the cross-platform open source program Stellarium. It renders the skies in realtime, which means that the skies will look exactly like what you see with your eyes, binoculars or small telescope.
Download Stellarium here
Comment by alessandro — 1 November 2007 at 22:03
Even better, Google Earth just added a “Google Sky” feature:
In the latest version of Google Earth, hit the “Switch between Sky and Earth” button on the toolbar to get a map of the night sky from your current location.
Several Sky layers are listed on the left-hand side, including Constellations, Backyard Astronomy, Hubble Showcase, The Moon, The Planets, User’s Guide to Galaxies and Life of a Star. The Sky layers are composed of over 1 million photographs from various scientific and academic sources.
Download Google Earth or Stellarium and start stargazing tonight!