Celestial Lights
By Phyllis Burton Pitluga

The Road to the Milky Way, a composite image by Larry Landolfi (copyright 2007)

Inspirations

Throughout time, the night sky has inspired humanity with wonder and awe. Its mysteries, vastness and depth inspire astronomers, musicians, artists and poets. This month, I am including a poem by a friend of a friend, Hal Edwards, and the accompanying photo-composite by artist-photographer Larry Landolfi that inspired Mr. Edwards. I suspect that both creations will inspire you to seek out dark skies and immerse yourself in our universe.

THE ROAD TO THE MILKY WAY
By Hal Edwards

I found myself
walking on my familiar path into
the darkness that encompassed my winding path.


I kept my usual pace until by happenstance
I gazed skyward
beyond the stubble and dips and crevices
of my ordinary life
and I found myself bathed and gathered upward
into the mystery of the Milky Way.


One solid glance
and everything changed.
A strange door opened within
the secret chambers of my soul.
A shift, a reflective insight, seized me.


For a lifetime, I kept my focus
on rocks and gravel and potholes,
watching my step,
doing the next thing,
being an innocent and practical fellow.


When I looked up and out
to my great surprise
I found myself unravel into wondrous awe.


I saw something beyond
right or wrong,
good or bad.


A midnight canopy of great darkness
opened my awestruck eyes
to astonishing and countless points of light.


Their configurations sparkled with life;
Their precise beauty penetrated my psyche;
I forgot my body,
I let go of all reason.
I was left unguarded
in custody of Creative Greatness.

Beams of light
countless thousands of light years away
remain intact and
participate in chaos and order,
perfecting their coming and going.


I stood captured
stone silent
mouth opened
heart thumping
beholding the mystery of
All Living Things.

Our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy

For the first two weeks of December the evening sky will be moonless and dark. Between 7 and 8pm, our Milky Way galaxy is arching from east to west across the sky and the Andromeda galaxy is overhead.

As you gaze outward, the individual bright stars in our sky are relatively nearby—between tens and hundreds of light years away (each light year is about 6 trillion miles). Fainter stars are thousands of light years away and the most distant stars of our galaxy are tens of thousands of light years away from us. They are so far that their light merges into the milky band of light that gives our galaxy its name.

As you look upward beyond all of these stars to the Andromeda galaxy, you are looking across a distance of over two million light years. This is the farthest you can see without a telescope. The photons of light shining from the stars of the Andromeda galaxy into your eyes crossed this space, at the speed of light, for the last two million years—finally being absorbed by your eyes!


The Andromeda galaxy looks like a fuzzy white oval to your eyes and in binoculars. You are looking at the heart of a distant island of stars. Its outer “spiral arms” are only visible through the largest telescopes. The Andromeda galaxy is the biggest galaxy in our neighborhood of about thirty galaxies. This galaxy is the gravitational “sink hole,” drawing the Milky Way galaxy toward it. In the distant future, these two galaxies will dramatically collide and merge together.

Geminid Meteor Shower, December 14

An astounding 120 meteors an hour (2 per minute) are predicted to rain across our sky on Friday, December 14 and into the wee hours of the 15th. From a dark-sky site, let your eyes adapt to the darkness to see ever-fainter stars and meteors. Look to the east about 7:30pm, overhead by midnight and in the west by dawn. Meteor showers are more impressive after midnight because the Earth is orbiting into the shower particles. Meteors streak across a wide expanse of the sky so you do not need binoculars or telescopes—just observe with your eyes.

The Geminid meteor shower particles are only grains coming from an asteroid (other meteor-shower grains come from decayed comets). Asteroids are rocky worlds that orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid belt is a region where there wasn’t enough matter to pull together a planet when the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

The asteroid 3200 Phaethon must be colliding with other little rocky worlds in its vicinity to be providing the debris field that we currently orbit through every December. These grains heat up from friction with Earth’s upper atmosphere, creating the glowing trails across our sky. The grains burn up and do not reach the surface of the Earth. Enjoy the celestial lights of our holiday season—the Geminid meteor shower.

Phyllis Burton Pitluga is Astronomer Emerita at Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago. She is now a resident of San Miguel.



Sky Calendar, December 2007

By following the moon as the biggest and brightest “pointer” in the sky, during the month you can identify different planets and bright stars. On following nights you can relocate them but without the moon—the moon moves about 25 times its own diameter from one night to the next. The moon is much closer than the planets of our solar system and the stars are much farther. So, when the moon appears close to a celestial light they are truly separated by millions, billions or trillions of miles.

In early December, Jupiter rapidly sinks in the southwestern evening twilight to become lost in the glare of the sun during the second week. Mars rises at sunset, crosses the sky all night and sets at sunrise. Saturn rises at midnight and is overhead by dawn. Venus is brilliant in the dawn sky.



Dec. 1, Saturday: The last quarter moon rises after midnight and is passing below Saturn 

Dec. 5, Wednesday: The waning crescent moon passes below Venus in the dawn sky

Dec. 9, Sunday: New Moon (no moon because the dark side faces Earth)

Dec. 14, Friday: Geminid meteor shower (see article above); waxing crescent moon passes below Neptune as viewed in binoculars or a telescope

Dec. 17, Monday: First quarter moon (looks like half a moon; half is turned away from us; the half we see is half lit—quarter moon)

Dec. 21, Friday: Waxing gibbous moon passes above the Pleiades Star Cluster

Dec. 22, Saturday: Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere when the midday sun is lowest and the nights are longest. Here in the tropics it isn’t nearly as noticeable as farther north.

Dec. 23, Sunday: The full moon rises at sunset; for the next two weeks the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night, making it also visible in the morning sky as the moon orbits toward the direction of the sun. Mars is at opposition tonight—rising as the sun sets along with the full moon just above.

Dec. 27, Thursday: The waning gibbous moon passes below the star Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation of Leo the Lion.