The Night Sky
December 2021
Orion and and its hidden treasures.
During this time of year, one of the most popular sights is the Orion constellation. Not many other sights are instantly recognisable in the night sky. Orion was a hunter in Greek myth. He maintained he could kill all living beasts, so a goddess sent out scorpions to kill him. The story is played out in the sky ‘for real’ as the constellation of Scorpio rises in the east, Orion sinks defeated in the West.
Looking South East on 4th December at 10pm (or 18th December at 9pm)
Here is a still from a time lapse ‘AllSky’ video I uploaded to Embsay Update recently. You can see Orion clearly at the lower right-hand corner.
Orion holds some amazing areas to observe with just your eyes, binoculars or telescope.
Unaided, you can see the three stars that form Orion’s belt and hanging from it is his sword. The sword contains the fuzzy blob of the Orion Nebula (M42 or Na’jr al Saif). This is a star cluster in the process of being created and one of our nearest star factories. With the aid of binoculars this area will appear pink.
Photo Milan Davidovic Jan 2017
With a telescope, at the heart of the cluster you will spot four closely grouped bright stars called the Trapezium. In my photo (above) they seem to merge into a white bright patch, first spotted by Galileo and recorded in a book of 1610. The Hubble Telescope has since studied these and each star has a mass between 15 to 30 times that of the sun.
Just below the left-most star (Alnitak), in Orion’s belt, is the Horsehead Nebula. Also known as Barnard 33, this ‘chess piece’ knight shape has been formed by interstellar material being lit from nearby stars. Here is an image I took 3 years ago from Embsay. It is also possible to see the Flame Nebula below and to the left. It is not possible to see this with just your eyes and even with a camera attached to a telescope it takes several minutes of light to be gathered to get this one image.
Photo Milan Davidovic Jan 2018
James Webb Space Telescope.
This month on 18th December, we will all hold our breath as the long-awaited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope will take place. It has a 6.5-metre-wide ‘eye’ that will see things we have never been able to see before. It will be able to see the faint light of the first galaxies and stars. To be able to catch this light that has travelled so long will be like looking further back in time. The challenges in getting this equipment into space have been huge. This has included a sun shield, bigger than a tennis court, that has been ‘folded’ into the nose-cone of the launch vehicle, sent 1.5 million km into space to be able to automatically unfold to protect the telescope. The process of unfolding will take over a month! It is being placed in a special position in space called Lagrange Point 2, which is on the other side of the moon to us where the gravity of the Sun, Moon and Earth balance out. This will mean that it will remain precisely positioned to do its work. If the James Webb Telescope is as successful as its predecessor, The Hubble Telescope, we will be in for some amazing discoveries as well as a better understanding of our Universe.
The Winter solstice is at 15.59 on 21st December and is the shortest day of the year. It is not a whole day and lasts only a moment. It is when the Earth for us is tilted as far away from the sun as much as possible. This means the sun’s path across the sky is as low as possible. Shadows are at their longest. It is a misconception that the Earth is furthest from the Sun.
New Moon 4th December
Full Moon 19th December
Clear Skies
Milan Davidovic
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