The Starry Weekend

This weekend finds me on the road again, and driving a few hundred miles across rural Texas and Louisiana puts one in the mind to contemplate the expanse above. You're only about an hour's drive from space right now, if you can find a car that will go straight up. But for now we have to settle for looking.

The sky of the fall has much to offer. Pegasus is right above you, and just to its edge in Andromeda is the Andromeda galaxy. With a suitably dark sky and knowledge of where to look you can see it with the naked eye. As far as I know, it's the most distant thing in the universe which is visible to the unaided eye, barring transient phenomena like supernova. In binoculars it's visible from light-polluted skies and is very impressive in even only modestly dark skies.

Why not give it a try tonight? It will only take a few moments and you'll be surprised at just how awe inspiring looking at another galaxy can be.

More like this

"In order for the light to shine so brightly the darkness must be present." -Francis Bacon
“That's a misconception, Lennie. The sky is everywhere, it begins at your feet.” -Jandy Nelson
Last week, we got a chance to talk about why the sky is red toward sunset and sunrise but blue everywhere else: the atmosphere.
One of my daughters was just reading Chicken Little to me. I don't know if you are familiar with Chicken Little, but she is a chicken that runs around telling people "The sky is falling". In my normal fashion, I started thinking about the plausibility of this. What would fall?

Photograph Orion's sword with 35 mm IR film and a deep yellow or orange filter. Good through a modestly long lens, way better though a guided telescope. The middle "star" is very naughty in the NIR compared to the other two. A webcam less its IR filter and with a deep yellow or orange filter might work.