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What Northern Hemisphere Astronomers Are Missing From the Southern Hemisphere
creimer (824291) writes The New York Times Sunday Review has an interesting article on the astronomical night life when viewed from Sao Paulo, Brazil, featuring a treasure trove not visible to astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere: "Yet the Southern Hemisphere claims the three brightest stars of the night sky: Sirius, Canopus and Alpha Centauri. Canopus belongs to the Carina constellation, notorious for two things: the Carina Nebula, four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula, and the star system Eta Carinae, which is expected to burst as a supernova or hypernova sometime in the next thousand years. (A scientist told the BBC that the explosion would be so bright that you would see it during the day, and you could even read a book by its light at night.) Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, the 11th-brightest star, are called "The Pointers," as they form a line in the sky to the constellation Crux (the Southern Cross). Crux is the smallest of all 88 constellations but one of the most distinctive. It is visible at practically any time of the year in all of the Southern Hemisphere."
I mean, yes, it's true. And yes, it's interesting. But ... news?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...but, in terms of widely recognized asterism shape, Delphinus and Sagitta are both smaller. Sure, as the sky is officially divvied up and assigned to constellations, Crux gets the smallest area -- but those divisions seem about as respectable as gerrymandered congressional districts in the US.
Night sky is pretty shitty from Mauritius. I use GoSkyWatch planetarium iOS App and to match what I see in the sky, I set the illumination slider to 3.2. Yes that's what I see at midnight pitch black from my shitty location.
Just to view the southern sky from the Atacama Desert. Clear skies far from light pollution. I need to see these sights. Those and the LMC and SMC.
Isn't Sirius observable in the Northern Hemisphere as well? Why the article sounded as if you can only see it in the Southern Hemisphere?
The light pollution where I live is so bad that only a few stars are visible on a clear night. I frequently wish all the street lights could be turned off for a change. I doubt that the switch to LED street lights will improve things. In fact, I imagine it will make things worse for the local observatory (Lick) since it is relatively easy to filter out sodium.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
You can see all those stars in the Northern Hemisphere... some of the time,
some places. The one that's really trouble for Americans is Alpha Centauri.
Key West or Hawaii are examples of where you should be able to see it.
The real pleasure, as the article says & the picture shows, is the Milky
Way, & the Magellanic Clouds. Pronounce the "g" in Magellan hard
(like "get") if you want someone in Latin America to understand what
you're looking for. And Alpha Centauri? That's Rigel Kent.
Of course, the majority of humans now live in urban areas, and see little or nothing of the night sky at all, whether northern or southern. Perhaps I'm taking this a step too far, but would it be possible that we'll see a continuing decline in interest and support for astronomy and space technology as more and more voters and influential people grow up and live their lives without ever really seeing the skies?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And the wavelengths the LEDs are putting out - emission spectroscopy is what you are looking for.
One positive is a lot of the new lights have fittings that reflect the light more in the direction where it is useful. It's easier to design such things for lights that are not very hot.
You can also eat fresh strawberries and go swimming on Xmas day
Crux is very useful for navigating at night. From wikipedia:
In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross is frequently used for navigation in much the same way that the Pole Star is used in the Northern Hemisphere. Alpha and Gamma (known as Acrux and Gacrux respectively) are commonly used to mark south. Tracing a line from Gacrux to Acrux leads to a point close to the Southern Celestial Pole.[3] Alternatively, if a line is constructed perpendicularly between Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, the point where the above-mentioned line and this line intersect marks the Southern Celestial Pole. Another way to find south, strike line through Gacrux and Acrux, 3 1/2 times the distance between Gacrux and Acrux, directly below that point is south.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
On the topic of the Crux, I found out recently that it is visible in the northern hemisphere, in some places. Also, it used to be visible as far north as Greece. So yes, Crux is a better name than Southern Cross.
There won't be any stargazing in the southern hemisphere because the night sky is ruined.
In 2008 I visited an observatory in Dubbo, NSW, Australia run by Peter Neilson. There were several open cluster visable that were more spectacular than any visible from the Northern Hemisphere. Half the sky is not visible from the US so we should not assume that we got the better half. :)
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
What about that Notch guy, I heard he has a house in the hills...
As you might imagine, there is a section specifically on Crux:
In your mind, draw a straight line through the axis of the Cross, through the tip and across the sky. You will find the arrow is pointing at another bright star. You cannot fail to identify this star, Achernar, because it is the only first-magnitude star in that part of the sky. Approximately halfway along the imaginary line between the cross and Achernar is the south celestial pole... Once you have established where the celestial pole is, you can determine your latitude. The celestial pole is always a number of degrees above the horizon equal to the latitude at which you are standing. Surprisingly, you don't need complex equipment to make this measurement. Polynesian navigators used a notched stick held at arms length, or sometimes nothing more than the outstretched hands and fingers.
Hej! Nasi tu byli!
suck it southern astronomers!
The window-shoppers of science.
There's a little asterism at the Vulpecula/Sagitta border called The Coathanger that's arguably smaller than either of these. It's just barely visible with the naked eye under ideal conditions, but it's there. Pretty cool to spot, too - a real challenge.
Have you read my blog lately?
The phrase "smallest of all 88 constellations" really irks me. Constellations aren't real things, they're imaginative descriptions of patterns people see to make it easier to remember which stars are which. There's at least one constellation "The Triangle*" which is smaller, or if you allow two-star constellations, "those two faint dots over there" is even smaller.
(*Yes, I stole that The Triangle from Terry Pratchett; it's the name of a Discworld constellation.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Heading south is a very good thing for astronomers to do. It's like visiting another planet: lots of new stars and stuff, and the familiar constellations are all upside down.
I've observed from Australia, New Zealand and the Cook Islands. My first view of the Eta Carinae region was from St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne. My first view of the Magellanic Clouds was from a highway rest area just south of Echuca, Victoria. One night at a motel in Forbes, NSW, I needed the bathroom in the wee hours and padded out to have a look. I knew the Sagittarius Milky Way would be out at that time of the night, but I couldn't find it at first. It was directly overhead.
Of course I went to Parkes. A nerd's gotta do what a nerd's gotta do. :-)
I'm watching Top Gear in Patagonia, and while Argentina has better scenery, Australia has better weather. And much better roads.
...laura
Scorpius (when did the name change?) is quite visible from Europe. It's easy to spot as it's the only constellation that actually looks like what it's supposed to be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
but then I read "in the next thousand years" so I figure I don't have to immediately plan a trip to that portion of the planet real soon.
Other than that, it would be interesting event unless there's tons of radioactive particles or a gamma ray burst (can may be nasty).
And to think last time of a visible supernova was when Europeans spend all their time doing religious reading and writing, and Chinese did very little documentation (or if they did it got lost in bureaucracy of those dynasties).
mfwright@batnet.com
...that actual astronomers DO constantly use the equipment mounted in the southern hemisphere for observing.
Perhaps the article would have made more sense if instead of astronomers, she'd said 'stargazers' - people who just enjoy looking at stars as opposed to actual astronomers?
-Styopa
Canopus belongs to the Carina constellation, notorious for two things
I do not think that means what you think it means.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The Southern Cross appears on the national flags of many countries in the Southern hemisphere. It features prominantly on both the New Zealand and Australian flags, causing confusion for people unfamiliar with them.
Flags depicting the Southern Cross: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Well duh, by definition, all northern hemisphere astronomers are missing from the southern hemisphere!
Sitting bright and pretty, right there in Canus Major.
They aren't sirius, are they?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
...is that astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere can use telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has built several telescopes in Chili for this purpose.
What Northern Hemisphere observers are missing from the Southern Hemisphere?
All of them.
I live in Antigua, 17N, we just did a star gazing night out and all the stars mentioned in the article are quite visible.
Always have to go one better, bloody Aussies
Hej! Nasi tu byli!