"Close Approach " of Venus and Mercury PART 2, by Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga

                                    January 20-22, 2015

 

FIGURE 01

Let's examine Figure 01, depicting the southwest backyard sky at about 6:15 p.m. on January 20, 2015. This is a time when a half-dozen stars are visible in your evening sky. Features include the positions of the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars.

A line drawn from the "S" which stands for South and to the "W" which stands for West would be the horizon if you were standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean. 

The Moon in our setting is just above the South-West horizon.  It is an eleven hour moon.  At 7 a.m. this morning the moon and sun were on the same north south line. The moon travels around the earth such it moves its own diameter each hour, or as viewed in the sky, half-degree each hour. At the time of our diagram, the moon has separated from the sun by 5.5 degrees.

Technically above the horizon, practically it would be very difficult to observe the 11-hour moon this close to the horizon, even though you were trying to observe it atop a large sand dune in the middle of the Sahara.  Only 0.4 percent of the moon is illuminated.  Figure 02 illustrates how little this is.

FIGURE 2

The illuminated crescent part of the moon does not present a continued light line, but is broken up in places due to the moon's crater walls seen edge on.

The brightest image in our sky is the planet Venus. It is the anchor in this our second posting of four; since our last posting of January 10th, when Venus and Mercury were very close in the sky.  Now, just ten days later, Mercury has peeled off to the west and below Venus. 

Mars is above Venus.  It will be interesting to watch from one evening to the next as their separation decreases.

                                    January 21, 2015

Just 24 hours later, we note from comparisons of last evening sky to this, the increasing separation between Venus and Mercury. (Fig. 03)

FIGURE 3

Last evening the Moon was 11 hours old. This evening it is 11 hours old plus 24, or 35 hours old.  It has increased from 0.4 percent illumination last evening to 1.3 percent this evening. (Fig.04)

FIGURE 4

This evening marks the first evening when the crescent moon is an easy target for the backyard observer.  Finding the moon's position is aided by its close proximity to the planet Venus. Two nights and three days ago the moon was an equally visible object in the morning sky immediately before sunrise.  Two nights and three days equal 72 hours. It took the moon 72 hours to pass from the morning sky to the evening sky. Half of 72 is 36.  We have a 35 hour moon this evening in good agreement of a standard two nights and three days traditional description of the dark of the moon, when the moon is not visible to the unaided eye.  

The Greek goddess of the Moon was Artemis. As the goddess of transitions she was a goddess of birth and death.  The crescent moon mythically died two nights and three days ago but now reborn as a crescent in this evening sky. A Greek word to describe a thin crescent moon is the word "Cynthia," abbreviated as "Cindy." Parents in search of a name for their newborn find Cynthia listed as another name for the Moon goddess Artemis.  This is a translation I would expect from a high school guidance counselor or worse yet, from a gym coach. An appropriate sense of the name Cynthia is: "She who hunts among the clouds."

The separation of Venus and Mars continues to decline.

                               January 22, 2015

This is the evening sky at about 6:20. (Fig. 05)

FIGURE 5

Note the position of Mercury. It is getting very low and by month's end will rise and set at the same time as the sun.

In just 24 hours the moon has changed its position from the west of Venus to the west of Mars. If we could pace the apparent distance the moon traveled from last evening to this evening, multiply it by 29.5 times, we would have marked a great circle around the sky. We would find the moon back to the same phase as tonight. This number is near the 30 day cycle of the month.  The month does indeed get its length from this, the Synodic cycle of the moon.

The moon is 9 percent sunlit. (Fig. 06)

FIGURE 6

I refer to this phase of the moon as the Romantic Moon, because it will take the moon 2.5 hours to set; more than enough time to accomplish the tasks at hand.

"Close Approach " of Venus and Mercury by Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga

The illustration shows the "close approach" of  the Planets Venus and Mercury at 6p.m. January 10th and 11th.  The apparent close planetary images is an illusion.  The planet Venus, on the far side of the Solar System is emerging from behind the Sun while Mercury is on the same side of the solar system as the Earth and will pass between the Sun and Earth on the 29th of January.

 It is the pairing of the fainter Mercury with the brighter Venus that makes the planet Mercury an easier target for backyard observing. This is the first of Venus paring with four celestial objects worth noting.  It was these apparent motions of the Sun, Moon and five visible planets that had a profound effect on human culture. 

Watch this space!

Orion - Part 2 - By Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga

We pick up at the point where we left off in the Orion Part I Post of March 6th

The Great Goddess and the Constellation Orion

With the absence of the evening moon, we can address an interesting aspect of these evening skies.

If you can locate but one constellation in the sky, chances are you can find the constellation Orion.  Orion's signature of three bright stars marking the giant's belt is unmistakable.  It is important to remember Orion is found by three bright stars.  It comes into play in another submission to the topic of Orion and the Great Goddess.

Orion has just about every award a constellation could hope for.  It has more bright stars than any other constellation, looks most like the object it is supposed to be and its position in the sky guarantees it is visible from every inhabited part of the earth.

In addition, consider the constellated scene composed of Orion the Hunter, Taurus the bull, and Canes Major, the large hunting dog of Orion.  Is there a more dramatic stage of constellations?

There is Orion with his unbreakable bronze club poised high over his head.  A shield of lion skin is all that separates him from Taurus.  The charging bull with head lowered and horns locked into position is but a second or two from putting an end to our giant hunter.  Can you imagine the ensuing battle of cosmic proportions?!  What fertile ground wheeling nightly over our heads for Greek storytellers, playwrights, and authors of epic poetry!

Actually you will have to use your imagination.  There are no stories, songs or poetry to come down to us from classic Greece that describes Orion in a bull fight.  It is certainly possible these items were simply lost to us.  "Lost to antiquity," was a popular phrase used in texts a century ago; though we do have another who brandishes a club and lion skin.  The constellation Hercules is a late Spring constellation made of dim stars.  We do have stories of how Hercules obtained his club, how the first of his twelve labors was to slay the Nemean lion whose skin according to some, he wears and is just short of covering Hercules's derriere.

Surely we can speak of legends of Orion and his trusty dog Canis Major.  Of the hunt Orion and Artemis shared, Canis Major must have been instrumental in the basic feature of tracking and cornering wild animals as part of his hunting dog duties.  In my half-century of reading Greek and Roman mythology all that I have been able to come up with regards Orion and his dog:  "Orion has a stick.  He throws it into the sky.  The dog grabs it and buries it.  That is where the first grapevine grows in Greece."  Where is even the merest dimension a hunting dog this animal is supposed to supply?  Lassie was more active every Sunday evening.

Here are the three boasts of Orion:

1. He is so tall he can wade across the Aegean Sea.

2. He is such a great hunter he can kill every living thing on Earth.

3. He is so strong he can tear out an Ash tree with his bare hands and carry it down  the mountain.

Quite an impressive list for our giant hunter.  Unless you begin to address the constellation at the giant hunter's feet.  It is Lepus, the rabbit or hare.  Why would a giant of this magnitude be content with the timid rabbit at his feet?  Planetarium lecturers, authors of constellation books and others who have a difficult time understanding metaphor have no trouble with this pair. "Of course there is a rabbit at the feet of the hunter... the hunter must have something to hunt and so there is the rabbit."  We have no Greek plays, songs, or epic poetry where Orion fights a rabbit.

The mythology we do have of Orion appears to be bits and pieces of other stories that have been spliced together to form what we call the mythology of Orion.  They do not form a coherent story of the life of Orion. In their popular 630 page text used in university mythology classes Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon devote 19 lines to Orion.  Less than a half-page, with no mention of a bull, dog or rabbit.  It is as though the constellated Orion and the mythology of Orion have less in common than what we learned in grade school, planetaria and books about constellations.

Here is a list of constellations around Orion known to the classic Greeks.  Beginning from the north and moving clockwise we have:

• Auriga - the charioteer holding a mother goat and two or three kids
• Taurus - the bull
• Eridanus - a river
• Lepus - a rabbit or hare
• Canis Major - a large dog
• Canis Minor - a small dog
• Gemini - the twins Castor and Pollux

Let's change the list to nine items of a charioteer, a mother goat and three kids, a bull, a river, rabbit, large dog, small dog, twins.  With the items disassociated from the constellated world, ask anyone who understands Greek mythology:  "What do these nine items have in common?"

If they really do understand Greek mythology, it should take something in the order of a second or two to respond: "Simple... these are all symbols of the goddess Artemis."

It will take several more submissions to explain how Artemis is a better fit for the stars of Orion and surrounding Greek constellations.

Stay tuned...more to come soon.  Thanks Dan!

Orion - By Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga

Orion

There are problems with the mainstream interpretation of the constellation Orion.

The problems and a possible solution will be addressed this month in a series of submissions.

For now, I would like to identify some of the constellations under consideration. 

The easiest way to identify a constellation occurs with the assistance of the moon. 

The diagram shows the position of the moon at 7:30 for several evenings.

March 06

The moon is before the stars of Taurus the bull.  Note the tiny cluster of seven stars to the north, or above the moon.  The cluster is known as the Pleiades or the seven sisters.

March 07

Immediately to the right and below the moon is a cluster of stars known as the Hyades star cluster.  It forms a distinctive "V" and forms part of the face of Taurus.

March 08

This evening the moon is just below the tip of the horn of Taurus.  There is a star to mark the tip of the horn, but the light from the moon makes it a difficult star to see.  Binoculars will help.  Note the moon is above three bright stars that form the belt of Orion.  The stars are quite bright and should be visible to the unaided eye.  It is important to our story that you can identify the three stars of the belt.

March 09

As depicted in our illustration, the Moon is now in front of Castor's lower leg.  Castor is one of the twins that make the constellation of Gemini.  The bright star like object above the moon is the planet Jupiter

March 10

Although the moon is still before the constellation Gemini, in one night it has moved to the right kneecap of Pollux, the other twin of Gemini.  To the south of the moon is the star Procyon, and even further south is Sirius, is the brightest star to the unaided eye in the night sky.

The brightening moon interferes with our ability to find these constellations.  We will have to wait until the 19th of March when moonlight no longer interferes to address the problems of Orion.

Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga: HOW DO YOU FEEL?

How Do You Feel Today?

The illustration highlights three constellations visible these mid – summer nights.  It is drawn to highlight these three in their positions at 9:00 PM.  In addition, I’ve indicated the positions of the moon for July 18, 19 and 20 as a location guide.

If you go outside Thursday July 18, and face south, you will see the moon in front of the stars of Scorpius.  In fact it appears the scorpion holds the moon in one of its pincers. Picture the moon in your mind’s eye as the center of a clock face.  Draw a line from that center outward toward the position of the seven on the clock face.  You will pass near a bright reddish star named Antares.  It is important that you can find that star.

The evening of July 19 finds the moon in the middle of the thigh of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer.

Saturday evening we find the moon just above the head of Sagittarius, the archer.

The increasing moonlight these three nights makes it nearly impossible to trace the stellar outlines of these three constellations.  Full moon occurs Monday July 22.  It won’t be until Friday July 26 when the moon rises after 9:00 PM, the time frame of our illustration, that the sky will be free of moonlight.  Then the star Antares can be a reference point.

It should be noted for scale, the distance from the horizon to the top of the head of Ophiuchus is three-quarters the distance from the horizon to the overhead point.

A scorpion, a man with a snake wrapped around his waist, and a centaur with bow and arrow. They seem as though they are a discordant set of images.  The usual approach to make some sense of these three would involve cracking open a book or two about constellations. It would be a mistake because such books lead you down the wrong path.  

Of the eighty-eight officially recognized constellations only three, according to mainstream thinking, look like the objects they represent.  Number one is Orion the hunter, two is Cygnus the Swan and the third is Scorpius the scorpion. I believe there are more than three, but we will take that up in another post.

What places the scorpion on this list is the long curving tail of the constellation.  It resembles a large fish hook complete with an anatomically correct star to mark the singer of the scorpion.

So, you are stung by a scorpion, what should you do?

“Step on it,” is the usual response from someone who was never stung by a scorpion. The intense pain from the sting is instantaneous.  It does not build. It feels like the worst burn you have ever experienced and then some. The pain is such that your first instinct might be to seek medical help.

Looking for medical help? This is where Ophiuchus enters the picture. He was the first prominent physician. He was so good at his healing art it was claimed he was capable of bringing the dead back to life. Your friendly neighborhood physician knows of this constellation not by the Roman name Ophiuchus, but rather by his Greek name Asclepius. The first sentence of one version of the Hippocratic Oath begins: “I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius…” I was informed by several different physicians not many physicians take the Hippocratic Oath because they know they cannot live up to what it says. Something to think about next time you are under the knife.

The connection of this prominent physician and snakes is related to the snake’s ability to shed its skin. Before shedding, typically the snake looks dull and listless.  After shedding, the colors are the most vibrant the snake can display.  The Greeks and others interpreted this transformation as the snake’s ability to build a new body in the old.  A snake could be killed, its body left to dry out in the sun then ground up as a powder, then the powder used as an ingredient in medicine. The aim was to give to the sick and ailing that magical quality of building a new body in the old.

Note, too, how (if drawn completely) the extended right leg of Ophiuchus would rest at the stinger of Scorpius to crush the source of pain.

Unfortunately there is more to life than physical pain… there is mental pain and suffering. The Greek Sagittarius, the centaur, helps here.  I recall a fourth grade school bus trip to the Bronx Zoo.  My teacher was sitting across the aisle from me.

I asked the rhetorical question as to how many centaurs are kept at the Bronx Zoo.  She looked at me and remarked how centaurs are one of those crazy make believe creatures invented by the Greeks.  She added centaurs really don’t exist.

What the Greeks were trying to say, but our culture doesn’t get (after all, as a culture we don’t understand our own mythic images, let alone the Greeks), is there are two parts to being human.  Part of us is animal.  We have similar blood, musculature and bone architecture of other animals.  That physical is the horse part of the centaur. We in addition have a spiritual part as well. The spiritual is represented by the human half of the centaur. The Greeks simply put our dual nature out in the open.

Centaurs were not very nice.  They were drug addicts, alcoholics and fought with anything that came down the pike. Sagittarius was the exception.  He was a physician, philosopher, and playwright, composer of hymns, teacher and poet.

We cannot help but notice Sagittarius has his arrow aimed directly at the heart of the scorpion, the source of mental pain and suffering.  Greek, Egyptian and others thought of the heart as a center for emotion soul and thought.  They did not know the purpose of the brain. This ancient concept is with us today.  On Valentine’s Day we have stylized images of hearts and not of brains.

Far from being simply a mass of random stars where we draw lines and images of mythic creatures, myths of stories we all know are not true, we can now look up at the stars and relate.  If the physical and spiritual are in balance (Sagittarius) we have nothing to fear from mental pain and suffering. On the other hand, if we are suffering from physical pain and suffering, have no fear; the doctor (Ophiuchus) is near.

    

Contributing Astronomy Editor, Dan Matlaga: OF DAYS GONE BY

Welcome back, Dan!  Today Dan will delve into the details and significance of June 21st, once considered mid-summer, now regarded as the start of summer.

Of Days Gone By...

It passed with little notice.  Another fact no longer holds for us from the varnished classroom of days gone by. 

 If you marked March 21 as the beginning of spring on your multiple choice science tests in 5th grade you were given credit for the correct answer.  Certainly the beginning of spring can, on occasion begin on March 20, but that was not available as a candidate of possible answers.  We have to keep it simple and direct.  After all, these are 5th graders.

What passed with little fanfare was March 21, 2007 Universal Time.  That was the last time for us that the beginning of spring fell on March 21.  The next time March 21 marks the beginning of spring will be in the year 2102 Universal Time.

How is this so?

The number of days in the year is 365.24218967 days.  Note the fraction.  The .24 is a quarter of a day, so to keep up the calendar in step with the seasons we have to add an extra day every four years.  The added day of the year is called a leap year.  Note however, that part of the fraction after .24 (the 218967 part of the number) also requires attention.  The rules to keep the wall calendar and seasons in agreement must change slightly.  The rule for the 218967 part of the fraction calls for a leap year whenever a whole number results by dividing the year by four (leap year) except for years which are both divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400.  This means the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years but the year 2000 was a leap year.

This change is minor compared to changes in "the good old days”.

What can the fifth grade student tell us about the upcoming June 21st? 

"It is the beginning of summer”, is the most common reply.

"It is the longest day of the year”, is next in line, with nothing to follow.

If you lived in the United States prior to 1900, the beginning of summer was not June 21st but May 1st.  This is why there are so many May Day celebrations to this day in Europe.  August 1st marked the end of summer, while June 21st was the middle of summer.

June 21 is the traditional longest day of the year.  What is almost never mentioned is that it is consequently the shortest night.  The magic of an entire night must be squeezed and compressed into just a few short hours.  In St. Petersburg, at latitude 60 degrees north, there are 19 hours of daylight but just a few hours of dusk.  In fact it is called the "white night" for the lack of truly dark hours.

William Shakespeare thought the magic of the June 21 night was so powerful he decided to write a play.  The play is titled: "A Midsummer Night's Dream”, which centers on the activities of several lovers caught in the forest on the night of June 21st. Surrounded by the magic of nature, away from the social graces of city life, the inner forces of their psyche takes hold. How many of us place our heads down on our pillows the night of June 21st and realize we are about to enter a midsummer night's dream?  Can you experience that level of romance for an entire night and be sane the next morning?  If your response is disbelief, you are the one who loses because you have lost the opportunity to dream.

Even Shakespeare's play is but a faint echo to the white night activities surrounding St. Petersburg.  On the night of June 21^st, from teenagers to senior citizens, it was off with all clothes and then they entered the forest for the entire night.  There was...well, you can use your own imagination.  Suffice to say nine months later around March 21st there was a considerable increase in the number of births.

With the advent of Christianity old observances were dropped.  With new ideas, dates were changed to June 24, the feast day of John the Baptist.  Gone were the old ways, in with the new.  Communism put an end to both the old and newer ways.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of communism, today there is noted a slight increase in births in St. Petersburg about March 21st.

Very enlightening and entertaining, as always!  Thank you very much Dan and Happy June 21st everyone!  As Dan pointed out, today is the longest day, but shortest night of the year - make the very most of it!!!

Contributing Editor, Dan Matlaga: YOU ARE SURROUNDED

You are surrounded by four simple words.  Four words probably picked up sometime between third and fifth grade.  The words are: West, South, East, and North.

Does it grate to list these four words with West as the first on the list instead of North?  Have no fear.  It will not be part of your permanent record if you do not list north as the first on the list.

If asked what these four words mean, nearly everyone from grade school through graduate school will answer "directions”.  If you thought "directions”, you must understand when you were in school you were taught definitions not meanings.  Directions are the definition of the four words, but not the meaning.

What do we put in bread dough so instead of the dough remaining flat it gets taller?  The answer is Y-E-A-S-T.  Note the word east in the word yeast.  We put yeast in bread dough to make the dough "rise”.

Esther

The word East means to raise, after all the sun, moon, stars and planets all seem to rise in the East.  You knew East means to rise even before breakfast this morning.  You have heard of the word "Easter”, which means to rise.  If you lived in Europe several centuries ago, there was a goddess named Esther.  It was Esther's job to make the plants rise from the ground each spring.  An observer can determine if the goddess pictured in the painting before them is the goddess Esther because she is always depicted either holding or surrounded by rabbits.  These animals were known as Esther's rabbits, the origin of the modern symbol of Easter rabbits.

Wikipedia Info. on Goddess Esther (Eostra)

If "east" means to rise, "west" means “to go down.”  The meaning of these two words simply reflects what is happening in the sky.  Celestial objects appear to rise in the east and go down in the west.

South has the sense of “the place of the sun”.  When the sun is in the south it is as high as it can be for that day.  Instead of writing “the place of the sun” on our maps, it is easier to write south. 

Of the four words north is perhaps the most interesting.  If we translate the word “north” into English, it means “left”, as in left and right.  In order for north to be on your left, you must face the east.  The Latin word for “left” is the word sinister, which means evil.

Why is north thought of as evil?

To understand this you have to pay attention to the daily weather report. When cold arctic air moves out of Canada and quickly heads south creating snow in Louisiana, citrus crops freeze in Florida, this cold weather front is known as the Arctic Express.  This is not just an American phenomenon.  Several decades ago hundreds of Europeans died when an Arctic Express covered much of Europe.

Picture This:

It is a dark and stormy night 9^th century in Europe.  You want to find directions. What can you do?  The magnetic compass hadn't reached Europe yet.  It is dark and stormy so no hint from the stars.  You can find north by looking for the local church.  Back in “the good ol’ days”, churches had their front doors facing east.  Well, not exactly east.  If the church was dedicated to St. Sophia, the patron saint of wisdom, for example, the church would be

shifted slightly north of east.  This to allow on August 6^th, the feast day of Saint Sophia the first rays of the rising sun to pass through a special window and illuminate the center of the alter on the other interior side of the church.  Another word for east is “orient, this slight shift of the church known as its orientation, is how the word “orientation” entered the English language.

It is difficult not to notice we are dealing with opposites.  Not just in the words, but their meanings as well: North (cold), South (hot), East (rise), and West (set).  The question is: “Where do these opposites meet?”

It must be a difficult question to answer with our Western civilization view of things because having given this topic in over 700 lectures, there was only one student who was able to answer correctly.  The student was from the Navajo reservation, well steeped in Navajo traditions.  He explained it was an easy question to answer because the Navajo sees himself or herself as part of nature. 

He went on to explain Western minds see themselves above nature so no doubt students might picture a map, or the Earth suspended in space. 

What answer did the student from the Navajo reservation give?

Without skipping a beat after the question was asked “Where do these opposites meet?  His answer was: “They meet wherever you are.”

Something as simple as West, South, North, and East… words learned as “directions” sometime between third and fifth grade have a considerable cultural slant once you decide to put your curious mind to work.

Thank you so much, Dan.  Another fabulous, thought provoking and educational post.  Really, can't thank you enough for sharing this with us.  Your vast knowledge is truly awe inspiring!

Contributing Editor, Dan Matlaga: Astronomy Event 4/13 And Other Cool Stuff!

Welcome back Contributing Editor, Dan Matlaga!  You may recall from  Dan's first post that in addition to his degrees in Astronomy and Geology, Dan recently retired from a 36 year career teaching Astronomy at Arizona State University via their planetarium - which was very interactive and "hands-on" at the planetarium itself.  Dan will continue to educate us on the subject of astronomy, including keeping us informed on current "happenings in the sky", such as the event that begins tomorrow, Saturday, 4/13.

Of course, Dan was also one of Joe's closest friends from their teen years.

So now, here is Dan with not only the info. on the Saturday event, but several other cool treats as well.  Take it away, Dan...

Just last week on PBS, the Nova program was an excellent treatment of the Greek Antikythera machine. The machine, about the size of a laptop, was billed as the world’s first computer.  It was found as part of a shipwreck in 1901.  The mechanism is at least 2,000 years old. The encrusted gears remained as an interesting museum piece until the late 1950’s when an English physicist examined it and discovered it was capable of predicting the positions of the sun and moon on a kind of clock face.  

Clearly there were more gears to the device, so one could conclude the machine was capable of more than positions of the sun and moon.  The PBS show demonstrated how the mechanism was capable of illustrating the positions of the sun, moon and five naked eye planets.  It was capable of predicting lunar and solar eclipses as well. 

The history books dedicated to the path of western technology will have to be rewritten as a result of this machine!

                                      Watch Ancient Computer on PBS. See more from NOVA.

I recall David Van Pelt bringing up the subject of this machine early in the 1960's.  He'd read an article about it in an old issue of Scientific American.  Joe Egles and I listened intently, athough we were not as familiar with computers.  Our discussions on the subject centered on the classic Orrery, a geared model of the solar system on the ceiling in a circular room at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.  We agreed if we ever made it to Athens, the Antikythera machine would be tops on our list. 

The three of us had a great respect for the sheer pleasure of knowing things.  Though I don’t ever recall a discussion on sports or the latest cars, our minds drifted through the fields of science and technology. If we three were together this Saturday evening, April 13^th, our thoughts would be skyward, specifically toward the west just after sunset.

Immediately after sunset, look above where the sun sets for the 12% illuminated crescent moon.  When the first stars appear, you will be able to find the bright “star” above the moon.  That is not a star but the planet Jupiter.  Between the moon and Jupiter, but slightly to the left, is the fainter red star Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull.  When it gets darker there will be an unmistakable letter “V” formed by dim stars.  The “V” represents the face of Taurus with Aldebaran forming the upper left part of the “V”.  A line drawn from Aldebaran through the moon, continued on the other side of the moon at a little more than the Aldebaran moon distance, is a faint group of seven stars known as the Pleiades. You can hold your thumb with extended arm up to the sky; your thumb will cover the Pleiades. 

How easy is it to locate these objects? The moon and Jupiter should be easy.  Aldebaran is fainter than the moon and Jupiter, but the close proximity of the moon and Jupiter should pose no problem provided the sky is dark enough and you have a clear western horizon, uninterrupted by trees or houses.  Chances are you may be able to locate only five or so Pleiades due to their low altitude. It helps if your local sky is reasonably dark and you are experiencing low humidity.  Just a few weeks ago here in Tempe, Arizona the humidity was 2%, with an increase of 3% after sunset. If you can find these objects, the stage is set.

Various Sky Viewing Conditions

The Pleiades are called the Seven Sisters.  To some Greeks they were known as the Seven Doves.  In our modern world, as well as millennia ago, the dove can be the symbol of the human spirit.  In an article for submission next winter, I’ll explain how the “V” in Taurus represents the physical.

So there you have it.  Early this Saturday evening the moon is between the symbols of the physical, the ”V” of Taurus the bull, and the spirit, the Pleiades. 

We learn in grade school the earth orbits the sun. The effect of this motion is to make the sun appear to travel two solar diameters across the sky each day in front of the far more distant stars.  Like the moon this Saturday, the Sun will appear to travel between the “V” of Taurus and the Pleiades.  In fact the position of the moon Saturday is about the same position the Sun will occupy on May 20th. 

A return to chaos occurs in classical mythology whenever a symbol disappears.  In this case the very bright sun forces the star symbols of the physical and spirit to disappear from our view; chaos between the physical and the spirit ensues.

How long will the chaos of physical and spirit last?  According to the Greek historian Hesiod in his “Works and Days", the Pleiades disappear from view forty days and nights.  This is an interesting number. Not only are there many references in the old and new testament of the number forty, we find it in relatively modern literature.  It is Ahab’s fortieth year at sea since becoming a boy harpooner that is described in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The hunchback of Notre Dame brings the princess into the church, climbs up to the tower and shouts: “Sanctuary,” to the crowd below.  By declaring sanctuary the police cannot enter the church to rescue the princess for forty days.  We have the stories of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves as well as the traditional period of quarantine lasting for forty days.

If you watch the Pleiades, you will notice with each passing evening they will appear lower and lower in the sky until they will no longer be visible on May 1^st.  They will reappear about June 9^th; when the Pleiades will emerge from the bright sunlight in the East, just before sunrise.

With so much riding on the observation of the Pleiades and other celestial bodies, is there any wonder why the Greeks would try to bring celestial observations down to earth to better predict the motions of the heavens in the Antikythera machine? 

You can stand out in the evening twilight over the next few weeks and watch as the Pleiades slide into the light of the sun and appreciate how this view inspired societies throughout time and place.

We have made great progress in representing the sky.  An excellent free download to your computer is the program Stellarium.  It is free and can recreate the skies from your backyard.  I hope to present more submissions that will be easier to follow if you have Stellarium on your computer.  It can create, among other things, this Saturday’s evening sky.

Here is a video about the Stellarium software.  Click on this link to download it for free!  http://www.stellarium.org/

Thank you so much, Dan - that was awesome!  Hope to see you again soon.  Can't wait to see what you have planned for us next.  We will download the  Stellarium software (I already have) and be ready to follow along!