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| Albireo
photo: http://spaceinfo.jaxa.jp/ja/binary_star.html
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Many
people are eager to go all the way to world heritage sites, but they even don’t
seem to notice that there is a breathtaking view just above our head. It’s the night sky. I think that it’s a shame for all of us
to lose the opportunity to see it because of the light pollution in big cities.
Last
weekend, I got out of the town and headed to the mountain area to enjoy watching
stars in spring. It was a new moon
night and the best time for observing stars. Although it was raining when we got there, we were very
positive that the sky would clean up by midnight. And, as we expected, the rain stopped. Besides, the rain washed away the dust
in the air and sky became nice and clear, which we seldom have a chance to
see. How lucky we were!
Some
experts operated a few telescopes that were connected to computers. They input some data of the location of
stars that we want to watch so that telescopes would automatically start searching
them. It’s like an auto pilot system
for airplanes. Unless we use
computers, it will take a lot of time to focus on the targeted stars because some
of them are just itsy-bitsy spots in the sky.
We
explored the night sky up until dawn. The stars we watched at night were various. Albireo, which appears to be a single star to the naked eye is actually beautiful
double stars through a telescope. The
Saturn is
an observable bright star with your naked eyes if you don’t expect to see its
ring. Some galaxies such as M57 ring nebula, M27 dumb-bell nebula, globular
Clusters are really exciting because they are beyond my perception of time and
distance.
The
Milky Way on that night was incredibly clear and we were able to see the white belt
that flew from the Swan to the Scorpion.
We also saw some artificial satellites flying across the sky while we were
looking up the Milky Way. The more
I know about the night sky, the more I like it. It’s very addictive.
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| Milky Way photo: http://kai-kuu.jugem.jp |
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