The Night Sky November 2018
The Seven Sisters
When I first saw the Pleiades through binoculars it took my breath away. It was like opening a treasure chest to discover hidden gems trying to out-sparkle each other. Even with my naked eye I could see a ‘cluster’ of stars but was stunned to see so many points of light tightly packed together. So just imagine this image as I pointed my telescope at this star cluster! Its common name is the Seven Sisters. Throughout time they have created a lot of interest. In medieval times they were known as ‘hen and chickens’ and also bizarrely as a bunch of grapes. In Greece they immortalised the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. The location of the Seven Sisters is shown on my diagram. It is very close to the constellation of Taurus the Bull in the evening sky. See how many of them you can spot with your naked eye. It is a good test of observation (and your eyesight!). There are 9 main stars which include 7 Sisters and their parents.
Taurus
Spotting Taurus is not difficult providing you find the very bright red/orange eye which is part of a distinctive ‘V’ shaped head called Hyades (one of our nearest open cluster of stars). Its horns are over exaggerated and it is pretty much an incomplete ‘bull’. The red eye is the star Aldebaran, 68 light years away. Spotting Hyades was regarded as bad luck to sailors and people who worked the land. This was because as Hyades became visible in the night sky it heralded the season of rain and poor weather. Conversely when it was no longer visible it indicated much calmer weather.
On the 23rd November a full moon will be sitting next to Aldebaran (the eye of Taurus) so this will help you get a fix on its position. But it would be much better to observe the delights of this area of the night sky around 7th November during a dark sky and a new moon. My diagram shows the view to the east around 9pm in the early part of the month. Note the diagonal line across the diagram. It is the path of the moon and planets during the year called the Ecliptic and extends right across the sky. If there is a planet to observe it will be very close to this imaginary line.
The Crab Nebula
In the year 1054 Chinese astronomers observed a massive supernova explosion named the Crab Nebula (M1) just at the edge of Taurus. Apparently it was the brightest object in the night sky and could even be seen during the day! With good conditions in Embsay and a pair of binoculars you can see it for yourself - although it is much fainter now. What you will see is a faint cloud but at the centre are the remnants of the star that exploded. All that is left is the size of a city 12 miles across called the Crab Pulsar. It is an object that rotates 30 times each second blasting out X-Rays, Gamma Rays and Radio Waves from 4000 light years away. It is very odd to think that when it was observed to have exploded, the light took so long to reach earth it had already happened 3000 years earlier! Many of the objects we see in the night sky may no longer exist as we observe them due to the incredible distance light has to travel to reach our eyes.
Other events of note this month.
17/18 November : Leonid meteor shower best observed after 1am. You may see between 10-20 beautiful streaks per hour radiating from the low east across our dark Yorkshire nightscape.
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