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sff_corgi_ljOMGOMGOMG O Lady Nut's overarching belly!!
Take THAT, Lochac College of Arms - especially you, Hund-at-the-time.
Last night, being chilly, was unusually clear here. The bestest part of the sky (I'm not biased), comprised of Taurus, Orion, Canis Major and Minor and Argo Navis, sets pretty early on now - Canopus disappears into the horizon-murk around 20:30, 21:00ish, for instance. I was up waytoolate, having been at work until midnight, messing around until midnight-thirty, then talking to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stormrunner for about a half-hour while sitting in the driveway before going in and spending hours on-line for various reasons.
It was, in fact, while talking to the aforementioned M., that I watched the stars straight ahead of me, being due south. There was one that was showing up unusually low - horizon-murk, remember? And trees, whatever foliage Wilma condescended to leave us. This star was arcing the sky even lower than Canopus, and definitely fainter. I can regularly see to about 4th magnitude around here. Kinda pathetic. I made note of the pattern I was looking at (let's see, one straight up from there, and another about the same brightness forming a sort of triangle that shape...) and came inside, eventually accessing first Heavens Above, then StarCalc to try to figure out what I'd been looking at.
For certain, I was observing at least part of Centarus (the Centaur) and Lupus (the Wolf) both. But... how much? What StarCalc told me, I had a hard time believing. I went outside, got my binocs from Ein-y-Gwyn and spotted another star, even further down toward the horizon, straight below where Canopus curves and in a narrow, narrow window of tree-cover. A brighter star, too, than what I'd been looking at before.
I drew the star-patterns on my hand, went back inside and compared: I had just been looking at Alpha Centauri from my very own driveway. THE star-of-stars of science fiction, especially Star Trek. And what's more, backtracking the chart to the time I'd been on the phone -- Crux -- the Southern Cross. No need for trips out to the middle of Biscayne Bay at the Summer Solstice, no astronomical overnights in the Keys required... the Southern Cross that we're not supposed to be able to see from the continental Known World was RIGHT THERE IN MY BACK YARD. I think only Gamma Crucis was really visible, but I also hadn't been using the glasses on it.
I feel so vindicated. :D
And now I'll shut up.
Take THAT, Lochac College of Arms - especially you, Hund-at-the-time.
Last night, being chilly, was unusually clear here. The bestest part of the sky (I'm not biased), comprised of Taurus, Orion, Canis Major and Minor and Argo Navis, sets pretty early on now - Canopus disappears into the horizon-murk around 20:30, 21:00ish, for instance. I was up waytoolate, having been at work until midnight, messing around until midnight-thirty, then talking to
stormrunner for about a half-hour while sitting in the driveway before going in and spending hours on-line for various reasons.It was, in fact, while talking to the aforementioned M., that I watched the stars straight ahead of me, being due south. There was one that was showing up unusually low - horizon-murk, remember? And trees, whatever foliage Wilma condescended to leave us. This star was arcing the sky even lower than Canopus, and definitely fainter. I can regularly see to about 4th magnitude around here. Kinda pathetic. I made note of the pattern I was looking at (let's see, one straight up from there, and another about the same brightness forming a sort of triangle that shape...) and came inside, eventually accessing first Heavens Above, then StarCalc to try to figure out what I'd been looking at.
For certain, I was observing at least part of Centarus (the Centaur) and Lupus (the Wolf) both. But... how much? What StarCalc told me, I had a hard time believing. I went outside, got my binocs from Ein-y-Gwyn and spotted another star, even further down toward the horizon, straight below where Canopus curves and in a narrow, narrow window of tree-cover. A brighter star, too, than what I'd been looking at before.
I drew the star-patterns on my hand, went back inside and compared: I had just been looking at Alpha Centauri from my very own driveway. THE star-of-stars of science fiction, especially Star Trek. And what's more, backtracking the chart to the time I'd been on the phone -- Crux -- the Southern Cross. No need for trips out to the middle of Biscayne Bay at the Summer Solstice, no astronomical overnights in the Keys required... the Southern Cross that we're not supposed to be able to see from the continental Known World was RIGHT THERE IN MY BACK YARD. I think only Gamma Crucis was really visible, but I also hadn't been using the glasses on it.
I feel so vindicated. :D
And now I'll shut up.
