Take part in "The Globe At Night" project - just look up at the sky tonight!

For the next week everyone is invited to participate in a global effort to measure light pollution and to learn about stars and the sky in your neighborhood, especially for those in big cities like San Francisco. The "Globe At Night" project invites people from around the world to take a few minutes in the next 7 days and look at one of the most beautiful constellations in the sky, Orion, and simply report how much of it you can see. It's easier than you think. And it's a great family project to show kids what you can see in the night sky.

The Globe At Night website provides all of the details, but in summary you compare what you see in your sky (your backyard, rooftop or any other convenient observing location) to a series of images on the Globe At Night website. By finding the image that best matches your view and reporting this on the website, you are helping to gather data from cities around the world on the relative light pollution in the sky. The constellation Orion contains stars of varying brightness, and depending upon the darkness of your skies, you will see more or less of these stars. The charts on the Globe At Night website show you Orion with differing "magnitudes" of stars, so for very light polluted cities you might only see the 1st and 2nd magnitude stars, whereas in darker skies you will see 3rd, 4th, or even 5th and 6th magnitude stars (the higher the number, the fainter the star).

Join the worldwide "Citizen Scientists" supporting this effort to increase awareness of the night sky, and take part. And bring along a friend. It's fun!

Seeing Summer in Winter - Scorpius and Sagittarius

The early morning sky this week holds some treasures for star gazers. As the view of the heavens changes from season to season, we have a chance to see the symmetry of our sky by looking south-east in the morning. In winter, we see the majestic winter sky in the evening, but by early morning we see the summer sky! How is this possible? Every 12 hours as the Earth rotates on its axis, we face the different constellations and in fact see the "opposite" season in the morning. This week, as the old Moon passes through the summer constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius, it accentuates the rich beauty of these two constellations, both of which contain many treasures for the unaided eye as well as for those who wish to get out their binoculars for a closer look.

Sagittarius is located in same direction as the center of the Milky Way, and Scorpius is just next to this, so both contain a richness of nebulae and star clusters that are easy to find in binoculars. It's worth the extra 2 minutes in the morning to take a look if you can get outside before the first light of dawn, before 6:00 am in San Francisco.

The Winter Sky Beckons

The Winter Sky beckons me to stop what I am doing and pay attention, for the view of the heavens in this magical season is unlike any other. Here in San Francisco, when it is not raining (as was the case for most of January through today), the air is dry and the atmosphere clear, giving the casual observer sparkling vistas into the heavens. And as this kind of weather happens with regularity in the winter, and the hours of darkness are at their maximum, it is all but impossible to miss the winter sky.

Evenings right now are dominated by the slowly fading planet Jupiter high in the west at sunset, and the colorful bright stars of Orion high in the southern sky, Canis Major and Sirius to the lower left of Orion, and Taurus and Aldeberan to the upper right of Orion. Facing north, the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia trade places every 24 hours, circling Polaris, the North Star. And later in the night to the east are a variety of treasures in Virgo with Saturn in the vicinity. Two weeks ago the morning sky featured the old Moon passing through Scorpios and Sagittarius, creating beautiful alignments that accented the eastern horizon at dawn.

The most important thing to do, if you want to see these amazing sky spectacles, is to keep your eyes open and look up - - nothing more than that is necessary to be captivated by the spell of the sky. No need for a telescope or binoculars. This time of year the stars dazzle in the night, and appear to be asking all of us to take a moment to contemplate their majesty and come to appreciate the universe, awaiting your view each night of the year.

Celestial Companions in the Cold Dark Morning

January mornings are dark times, and when the sky is clear it is certain to be chilly outside. So I find the sight of the old Moon reassuring, a warm light that fades a bit each successive morning and guides the way through bright stars and planets along the ecliptic to the soon-to-be-rising-Sun. You can see this spectacle at its finest the next few mornings as the Moon moves a bit further eastward each day and passes near to some distinct celestial companions.

The Moon is passing now through Scorpius and the grey-white of the Moon stands in stark contrast to the red-orange of the star at the heart of the Scorpion, Antares. Moving close to Antares on Friday morning, the Moon continues toward the brilliant planet Venus on Saturday morning, and then slowly fades into the glare of sunrise on Sunday morning. My kitchen window faces south-east so I see this changing landscape each morning and I look forward to the coming days with clear skies in the forecast. If you rise before sunrise, take a moment to look out toward the south-east and enjoy the calm of this morning celestial grouping of close companions in the heavens.

KFOG Podcast - January 20, 2011

My monthly conversation with KFOG Morning Show's Irish Greg moved from the new Zodiac signs (such as Ophiuchus) to the Aurora Borealis to the big bold winter constellations such as Orion and bright stars such as Sirius. Click here to listen and get inspired to look up at the sky tonight!

Northern Lights from 35,000 Feet – The Aurora Borealis

I had the privilege of seeing the Aurora Borealis today while on a flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany. The Aurora, or Northern Lights, is a beautiful, eerie glow in the sky caused by the light pressure (Solar Wind) from the Sun hitting Earth’s upper atmosphere and causing molecules to glow where the Earth’s magnetic field is concentrated in a circle around the North Magentic Pole.

A bit of science: "Auroral Ovals" are regions on the Earth around the magnetic poles where Aurorae are most likely to occur, and because the Magnetic North Pole is in Northeastern Canada, the auroral oval extends to other reaches of Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and the Arctic region. The website Spaceweather.com has a daily update on the size and location of the auroral ovals (scroll down and look on the left hand side of the homepage). Since I knew I was going to be on a flight to Europe that would take me far north and near to this region of the Earth, I made sure I had a seat on the left hand side of the plane and once on board, watched the flight map to follow our progress. Like most international flights that travel east, the flight moved quickly into darkness and at about the halfway point at which we were at the Arctic Circle, I started looking out my window. Not surprising at all, I began to see a faint glow on the distant northern horizon. Over the next 30 minutes, the glow became bigger and before long the plane was in the midst of what appeared to be clouds of light, glowing a faint green among the backdrop of circumpolar stars. Luckily there was no moonlight to distract from the view this night.

There is no way to easily describe the Northern Lights except as beautiful curtain-like clouds that glow of their own light, rather than being illuminated by sunlight. The shapes change continuously, and in the more dense regions the wing of the plane outside my window actually was illuminated by the glow. Moving along at high speed the view was always unfolding, always bringing new shapes into view. I watched for about two hours until the intensity began to wane.

If you are traveling a route that takes you far north (any West Coast to Europe flight will do) and it is in the late Fall and early Winter months, you should acquaint yourself with the auroral oval on Spaceweather.com and get a window that faces north (left hand side) when flying east. Be patient, darken your seating area, and look carefully, as you would for any item of astronomical interest. You’ll be rewarded with an unforgettable, magical show.

Quadrantids Meteor Shower - January 3-4, 2011

2011 starts with an impressive meteor shower for those ready to brave a cold night. The Quadrantids take place the night of Monday January 3rd into the morning of Tuesday January 4th, and are made better by the fact that the Moon is new, meaning no interference from moonlight.

As always, the best viewing of any meteor shower is from a dark location, ideally away from city lights. But I have had some success right in my backyard in San Francisco by positioning myself away from direct lights such as streetlights and houselights, and allowing myself 5 to 10 minutes to adapt to the darkness. Once dark adapted, the winter sky shimmers and Quadrantids are readily visible. In dark skies outside of cities you can expect up to 2 meteors per minute, but in the City I am happy to see 1 meteor every few minutes. This year should be as good a show as any, and despite our rainy Northern California weather the outlook is good.

To see this shower, position yourself facing northeast but give yourself as much of a view of the sky as possible. A lawn chair is best (along with blankets and a hat), as the meteors appear to originate in the constellation Bootes in the northeast part of the sky, but the meteors radiate in every direction away from this point.

For some fun background and history of this meteor shower, check out Astronomy.com and NASA's "What's Up" blog series. Image is courtesy of NASA.

Stay warm, and here's to good skies!

Shimmering Early Morning Sky

As we approach the latest sunrise of the year (January 4th at 7:25 am in San Francisco), the morning sky remains dark enough to see stars until well after 6:00 am. That means that the early riser is rewarded with some lovely sights to close out 2010 and welcome 2011. Brilliant Venus dominates the sky each morning, shining bright in the South-East well before dawn. This week the waning Moon presents a changing landscape as it moves past Saturn, the bright star Spica (see diagram on the right), and then later in the week Venus and Mercury. Following the Solstice-Total-Lunar-Eclipse, the Moon is tracking downward on the Ecliptic, meaning that each Morning it is following the planets from high in the sky on a steep angle toward the horizon.

If you are not an early riser, don't despair. I'll have a post about the Winter skies soon. All you have to do is look up (especially if you are up at midnight on New Year's Eve and have clear skies). The Winter is a fantastic time to enjoy the stars.

Image courtesy of Sky and Telescope Magazine.