Star struck by Awe-stronomy?!

Even from amidst the bright dazzle of the city lights of Victoria, the moon, the major planets, and several iconic constellations are clearly visible to the naked eye as we gaze skyward. However, as we head out into the great outdoors on trips with Power To Be, especially on an overnight camping adventure, the night skies open up to their stunning beauty, leaving us awe struck by the myriads of stars overhead.

On a dark moonless night, the disk of our galaxy, the Milky Way, arches directly overhead, with dark dust lanes weaving through the twinkling thousands of stars. It is best to lie back on the ground and let your eyes and mind soak it all in. It is also nice to know a bit about what we are seeing, and this blog is meant to get you started in that direction.

This summer was a wonderful season for planets gazing, with four major planets, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars parading after each other in the early evening skies. As we go into the changing colours of fall now, the first two of these set even before the sun goes down. However, Saturn is still visible, low on the southwest horizon, and her beautiful rings can be seen even with a modest-sized telescope. The eye catching, orange-red orb of Mars is clearly visible in the evening sky looking south, where also lie the ecliptic, the path in the sky followed by the sun and all the planets as viewed from Victoria. The moon, a lovely crescent today as I write this, wanders roughly along that path.

Standing in the darkness under a starlit sky, it is quite disorienting to figure out even the cardinal directions. The location of Victoria at 48N makes this easy since Polaris, the North Star is always visible. Follow the two outermost starts, Merak and Dubhe in the cup of the Big Dipper (also visible throughout the year) to about three fist lengths on the sky, and the bright star there is Polaris (in the constellation Ursa Minor, the little bear). If you stand facing Polaris, east is to your right and west to your left. Directly behind you is south, where lie the Ecliptic and any visible planets.

In a recent field trip to the University Of Victoria Observatory, members of the Power To Be community enjoyed the beauty of the night skies through the telescopes we have there. With the 8” Celestron telescopes, we looked at the nearly full Moon, Mars, Saturn and her rings, and Jupiter plus the four Galilean Moons. We then used the big 32” telescope to look at more distant objects, the star clusters, M13 and M11, the Ring Nebula, and the beautiful binary star pair, Albireo.

Check out the resources below to inspire your next adventure and enjoy your stargazing!

– Story shared by Karun Thanjavur, Power To Be volunteer and University of Victoria Physics & Astronomy Senior Lab Instructor

Photo credits: Banner photo Patrick Carr on Unsplash / Milky Way photo Thomas Ciszewski on Unsplash / Moon photo Mike Petrucci on Unsplash