With Saturn above and Antares below, bright Venus begins showing up a half hour after sunset on the 27th, a little south of west. The trio is joined by a thin crescent Moon November 2nd. Mars remains the most prominent shiny object low in the south.
Yawn. Planets again. OK, I admit I favour the Moon, planets and meteor showers, but that’s simply because you can see them with your hands in your pockets from your back yard. Anyone not initiated into astronomy must wonder what the heck the attraction is, so... I present my Top Ten List of sky stuff to look at if your back yard has a telescope in it. In my case it’s my driveway, as my back yard is all trees. Some day I’m going to have to decide if I’m an astronomer or an environmentalist.
Number 10, Nebulae: with colourful names like the Ring, Dumbbell, Trifid, Veil, Eagle and Crab, these dozens of massive gas clouds house both ancient stars and new ones waiting to be born. Number 9, Galaxies: the Andromeda, Pinwheel, Sombrero, Whirlpool and billions of others, so numerous in places that dozens can be seen at once in a single telescopic view.
Number 8, Stars - the SUN, the giants and supergiants, the dwarfs, the binaries and triplets, and the variables that brighten and dim as you watch. At Number 7, Open Star Clusters such as the Pleiades and Coat Hanger, observable with your eyes or binoculars; these close-knit families of stars are always worth a look.
Number 6 are Comets and Asteroids, the mostly predictable visitors to the inner solar system that sometimes bring a surprise. At Number 5, the Moon is just too big to be ignored, and I don’t. Its fascinating landscape of craters and mountains is mesmerizing in a telescope.
Number 4: one’s first view of Saturn and its rings in a telescope is a ‘Wow!’ moment for almost everyone; so are their next hundred views. Coming in at Number 3 is Jupiter and its moons, Galileo’s claim to fame and also his downfall. Whenever I’m out and Jupiter’s up, I can’t help but sneak a peek.
At Number 2 are Globular Clusters - mysterious balls of hundreds of thousands of stars orbiting the centre our galaxy. There are no definitive theories about why they exist, but there they are, big and bright and easy to see. X-files stuff.
And finally, at Number 1, my favourite object of all is the Night Sky itself, what you see when you look up from a dark location at our personal galaxy, and think about what you’re actually seeing. It’s just one of billions out there, but it’s ours. This glimpse of our home in the universe, available to you from your own back yard, is to me the grandest sight of all.
