Hello from Kent…
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Hello from Kent…
J'n'ai plus mal en permanence. J'ai les larmes aux yeux quand je vois des chaussures pour bébé, ou quand j'entends un enfant hurler, ou encore quand je pense à des prénoms que j'aime bien (et travaillant dans une école... J'en vois passer des prénoms)
Mais ça va. Je crois que je n'ai fait qu'une crise de larmes nocturne par rapport à ça ce mois-ci... C'est plutôt bien par rapport aux mois passés, quand je m'effondrais complètement aléatoirement, et quand j'y pensais presque en permanence. Ça venait par tsunamis sans fin dans mon cœur. Maintenant ça vient par vagues intenses mais douces. J'encaisse mieux.
Ca va mieux. Par rapport à ça, ça va mieux, on remonte la pente. De toute façon je fais en sorte de m'occuper assez l'esprit pour ne pas avoir le temps d'y penser... Aelnaute, Etsy, Instagram, mes deux travails, ma santé qui disjoncte, mon déménagement, mes séances hebdomadaires de cinéma... Je fais en sorte de m'occuper d'autres choses, peut-être que parfois je minimise ce que j'ai traversé, comme ça a souvent été le cas en fait, je minimise pour me protéger...
Mais bref ça va mieux...
Pointing at Polaris, Bright Pre-dawn Planets, and an Enticing Evening Moon!
(Above: Polaris, the Pole Star, is an easy double star visible in backyard telescopes. Look for a small companion near Polaris (yellow arrow) and then trace out the rest of the dim diamond ring asterism. Since the sky revolves around Polaris, the ring of stars can sit in any direction from Polaris.)
Hello, Stargazers!
Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of March 10rd, 2019 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along to your friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics. I repost these emails with photos at http://astrogeoguy.tumblr.com/ where all the old editions are archived. You can also follow me on Twitter as @astrogeoguy! Unless otherwise noted, all times are Eastern Time. Please click this MailChimp link to subscribe to these emails. If you are a teacher or group leader interested joining me on a guided field trip to York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory or the David Dunlap Observatory, visit www.astrogeo.ca.
I can bring my Digital Starlab inflatable planetarium to your school or other daytime or evening event, visit DiscoveryPlanitarium.com and request me. We’ll tour the Universe together!
My latest Mobile Astronomy column for Space.com is about opportunities to see all the spectacular objects in Charles Messier’s list during a single spring night. You can read it here.
Public Astro-Events
Taking advantage of the moon, Mars, and other bright objects in the sky this week, the RASC Toronto Centre astronomers will hold their free monthly public City Sky Star Party in Bayview Village Park (steps from the Bayview subway station), starting around 7 pm on the first clear weeknight this week (Mon, Tue, or Thu only). You don’t need to be an RASC member, or own any equipment, to join them – looks are free! Check here for details, and check the banner on their website home page or Facebook page for the GO or NO-GO decision around 5 pm each day.
Every Monday evening, York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory runs an online star party - broadcasting views from four telescopes/cameras, answering viewer questions, and taking requests! Details are here. On Wednesday nights they offer free public viewing through their rooftop telescopes. If it’s cloudy, the astronomers give tours and presentations. Details are here.
At 7:30 pm on Wednesday, February 13, the RASC Toronto Centre will hold their free monthly Speaker’s Night Meeting at the Ontario Science Centre, and the public are welcome. This month, the speaker will be Brittney Cooper, MSc student from York University’s Department of Astronomy. Her topic, Scattering Throughout the Solar System, will cover how light reflects off objects like Saturn’s rings, planet atmospheres, and more. Check here for details. Parking is free.
On Friday, March 15, starting at 7 pm, U of T’s AstroTour will present their planetarium show Grand Tour of the Cosmos. Tickets and details are here.
Saturday, March 9 marked the opening of a six-month exhibition at the Aga Khan Museum entitled The Moon: A Voyage through Time. The museum will feature installations of art, culture, history, and science pertaining to the moon. A public talk, The Moon: Mirror of Faith, Science, and the Arts will be delivered by Dr. Christiane Gruber on Saturday at 2:00pm. Details are here.
Walking the Big Dog
If you missed last week’s write-up about the night sky’s brightest star Sirius, and its constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog), I posted it with sky charts and pictures here.
(Above: The northern sky from mid-Northern latitudes, viewed here at 9 pm local time on March 11, features the Little Dipper / Ursa Minor and the Big Dipper / Ursa Major. The tail stars of Draco separate the two bears. The outer two stars of the Big Dipper’s bowl can be used to point to Polaris.)
Pointing at Polaris
Polaris, the North Star, is the star at the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper, the asterism we also know as the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Bear). Contrary to popular opinion, Polaris is not a prominent star at all. It is ranked only 48th in brightness – but nevertheless it can easily be spotted with mere eyeballs in a moderately dark sky, if you know where to look. Polaris is located about 430 light-years from Earth. Its surface temperature is similar to our sun’s, but the star is much larger, and it emits 2500 times the light of our sun.
Polaris’ fame is due to its steadfast position over the northern horizon. While the rest of the sky revolves due to Earth’s rotation, Polaris remains anchored in place because it sits less than a finger’s width from the North Celestial Pole, the imaginary point in space that the Earth’s axis of rotation points at. Due to Earth’s precession, the slow wobble of the Earth’s axis, Polaris will slowly drifting closer to the pole until the year 2101. The star Thuban in Draco (the Dragon) was the pole star when the pyramids were built.
You can measure your latitude on Earth by counting how many degrees above the horizon Polaris is. Combine that knowledge with the fact that Polaris marks where the compass direction of north is, and you’re well on your way to figuring out your location on Earth - at least, that’s what folks did before GPS!
The easiest way to find Polaris is to use the outermost stars in the Big Dipper’s bowl. Join an imaginary line from Merak (the bottom of the bowl) to Dubhe (at the rim of the bowl) and keep going. Polaris is the next obvious star you’ll come to. It’s about three fist diameters from Dubhe. Don’t forget that the Big Dipper, like everything else in the sky, circles around Polaris continuously. Sometimes you’ll be drawing that line upwards, and sometimes to the left or the right. In March annually, you’ll find Polaris it downward and to the left of the dipper. Merak and Dubhe are often referred to as the Pointers. I’ll put a sky chart here.
If you have a telescope, aim it at Polaris and look for a dim, white-coloured partner star sitting near more yellowish Polaris. Once again, the little star can be anywhere on a circle surrounding Polaris. On mid-March evenings, the companion will be to the lower left, but your telescope’s optics will probably flip it to another orientation. That little star can be joined up with more stars to form a small, roughly circular ring of dim stars on the side of Polaris opposite to the Little Dipper’s bowl. It’s called the Engagement Ring, and Polaris is the diamond. Let me know if you see it.
In mid-March at around 9 pm local time, the rest of the Little Dipper extends sideways to the right from Polaris, and curves strongly upwards towards the Big Dipper. The two dippers fall on either side of the tail stars of Draco. The magnitude 2.06 star at the outer edge of the Little Dipper’s bowl (and closest to the Big Dipper) is slightly dimmer than Polaris. This medium-cool, reddish star is named Kochab. The other five stars of the constellation may be too dim to see from the city, but binoculars will reveal them. Good luck!
The Moon and Planets
This week, the moon will entice you to gaze upon it after dinner. It will spend the week waxing fuller while it climbs the western evening sky. When the moon is at this stage of its monthly journey around Earth, the sun is slowly rising over the moon’s eastern horizon. The slanted “dawn” sunlight casts long, deep black shadows to the west (our left) of any elevated feature on the moon – including crater rims, mountain chains, ridges, and fault scarps. For the best views, point your binoculars or telescope along the strip flanking the pole-to-pole line that divides the lit and darkened hemispheres. And remember, when the majority of the side of the moon we see is dark, the far side is mostly lit. In other words, it’s wrong to refer to the part of the moon we never see as the dark side, because it’s only dark half of the time!
(Above: On Monday evening, the waxing crescent moon will land a palm’s width below Mars, as shown here at 9:30 pm local time. Much dimmer Uranus is in nearby Pisces. The star Menkar, to the left of the moon, is Ceti Alpha of Star Trek canon.)
On Monday evening, the waxing crescent moon will be positioned a palm’s width below Mars. The duo will set at about midnight local time. At the same time, you might notice a rough circle of medium-bright stars to the moon’s left. That’s the head of Cetus (the Whale). The brighter, warm-coloured star positioned a fist’s diameter to the left of the moon is named Menkar. That star’s formal designation is Alpha Ceti, “the brightest star in the whale”. In Star Trek lore, Ceti Alpha V was the planet around that star that James Kirk marooned Khan Noonian Singh and his group on in the Original Series episode “Space Seed”. It was later featured in “The Wrath of Khan”. Take a look!
On Wednesday evening, the moon will land just below the triangle of medium-bright stars that form the face of Taurus (the Bull). Stargazers in western North America will see the moon approach close to the bright, orange-ish star Aldebaran (the eye of the bull) before both objects set in the west. Wherever you live, look a fist’s diameter to the right of the moon for the Seven Sisters, the small, bright cluster of stars that form the logo for the Subaru car company. The sisters were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology. We also call this object the Pleiades cluster and Messier 45.
On Thursday morning, the moon will reach its First quarter phase, when it will sit at a 90° angle from the sun and will appear half-illuminated. First quarter moons rise around noon and set around midnight, so they become visible starting in the afternoon. The term quarter moon refers not to its appearance, but the fact that our natural satellite has now completed the first quarter of its orbit around Earth since the last new moon.
(Above: On Thursday evening, the First Quarter moon will tickle the toes of Gemini, as shown here at 9 pm local time. Orion’s raised club is at bottom centre.)
On Thursday evening the moon will tickle the toes of Gemini (the Twins). On Saturday night, the waxing gibbous moon will be positioned about a palm’s width to the right (west) of the large open star cluster known as the Beehive or Messier 44 in the constellation of Cancer (the Crab). The moon encounters the cluster frequently because the Beehive is located only 1 degree north of the ecliptic, the great circle around the sky that most solar system objects orbits are close to. To see the cluster’s stars, try placing the bright moon just outside the field of view of your binoculars. The following evening, the moon will hop past the cluster to sit a similar distance to the lower left (east) of the “bees”.
As I referenced above, Mars will be an easy planet to see every evening this week. When the sky begins to darken, look for Mars as a medium-bright, reddish pinpoint of light less than halfway up the western sky. The Red Planet will set at about midnight local time. Mars has been slowly shrinking in size and brightness as we increase our distance from it little-by-little.
(Above: The eastern pre-dawn sky, shown here at 7 am local time, features three bright planets. Very bright Jupiter rises first and moves into the southern sky by dawn. Brighter Venus is low in the southeast, and dimmer Saturn sits midway between them.)
The remaining bright planets have been hanging out in the eastern pre-dawn sky, and they’re putting on quite a show. Bright Jupiter will rise first, at about 3 am local time. By 7 am local time, it will be a beacon in the southern sky. Yellowish Saturn, which is somewhat dimmer due to its greater distance from Earth and its slightly smaller diameter, will rise at about 4:45 am local time and will be lost in the twilight by 7 am.
Our sister planet Venus is now getting markedly closer to the sun and will soon disappear into the dawn twilight. Venus’ blazing brilliance will grace the lower part of the southeastern dawn sky after 6 am local time, and remain in view until sunrise. In a telescope, Venus will exhibit a gibbous (more than half-illuminated) phase. If you have trouble seeing Saturn, search about midway between Jupiter and Venus. I’ll post sky charts for the observable planets here.
Keep looking up, and enjoy the sky when you do. I love questions and requests - so, send me some!
Lundi va falloir que je m'exprime devant une dizaine de vrais adultes responsables, devant des professionnels, des parents, pour dire ce que je pense de cet enfant, parce qu'il paraît que mon avis compte. J'ai rdv avec l'inspecteur aussi pour reparler une énième fois de la classe ULIS.
Lundi on sera le 18 mars. Ca fera un an que je me suis effondrée en larmes, seule, dans cette salle de bain.
Du 18 jusqu'au 29 mars ça risque d'être compliqué dans ma tête...
Le 22 mars 2018, je l'ai promené dans Lyon, comme pour lui montrer à travers mes yeux cette si jolie ville, nous avons découvert un nouvel endroit ensemble, la passerelle des 4 vents où je rêvais d'aller depuis plusieurs mois. J'ai fait 1000 promesses sur cette passerelle. Des promesses chuchottées à travers ma peau, des promesses aux étoiles, des promesses à moi-même. C'est le jour où j'ai vraiment réalisé ce qu'il se passait, où j'ai arrêté de minimiser. La plupart des images de ma vidéo de mars ont été filmées ce jour-ci. Témoignant ainsi de ma solitude et ma tristesse infinie en pixels.
Le 22 mars, c'est la "Saint Léa". Et avant je m'en foutais. J'ai jamais vraiment compris ce concept de fête des prénoms... Mais maintenant, plus aucun 22 mars ne sera pareil. Et le premier qui me souhaitera une "bonne fête" je crois que je le maudirai.
31/01/19
Et toi, tu aurais eu quel prénom parmis ces 500 prénoms qui m'entourent chaque jour ?
Blessure béante et silencieuse. J'arrive enfin à passer des journées sans y penser, et d'autres où ça me revient en plein dans le cœur, d'un seul coup. Apprendre à vivre avec. Aujourd'hui j'ai échoué dans cet apprentissage. Ça ira mieux demain.
10/09/2018
Au début je voulais adresser ça à ma mère, et puis à mon glaçon gelé, mais finalement je m’en remets à vous Madame les Etoiles, encore.
J’ai d’énormes douleurs à l’épaule gauche, et aux cervicales, depuis avril, des fois ça me bloque, et ça part, et ça revient. Je pensais que ça allait passer tout seul, j’aime pas trop consulter de nouveaux médecins... Alors j’ai trop attendu. Cet après-midi je vais enfin voir l’ostéopathe. Cette douleur est venue juste après l’avortement, et un peu avant la rupture avec mon ex. Je pense que mon côté psychologique a tellement encaissé à cette période que c’est mon corps qui a réagit à sa manière.
J’en serais à mon septième mois de grossesse. J’ai pas beaucoup dormi cette nuit, j’suis à fleur de peau, toutes mes pensées sont tellement amplifiées. J’ai beaucoup pensé à mon glaçon. Celui qui m’a frigorifié pendant plus d’un mois. Je pleure beaucoup.
Ce matin avant l’entretien, quand je me préparais, ma Maman m’a téléphoné, pour me rassurer sur certains points. Et je me suis effondrée en larmes, d’un seul coup... “Ma chérie, ça va ? C’est le stress ?” ... “Je sais pas Maman, c’est pleins de choses”... Oui c’est pleins de choses, évidemment j’étais stressée mais y’a pas que ça... Y’a mon Amour qui me manque. Y’a la solitude permanente. Y’a cette peur qui grandit, cette peur de sortir dans la ville, dans la foule, avant j’y arrivais très bien, depuis quelques mois je n’y arrive plus, ça me vide de toute mon énergie...
Je me plains d’être seule, mais je n’arrive pas à sortir de chez moi sans paniquer, je n’arrive pas à me convaincre d’aller vers les gens, j’y arrive plus.
Je pensais que cette histoire d’avortement allait un peu s’atténuer avec le temps, mais j’ai l’impression que ça me ronge de plus en plus de l’intérieur, discrètement ça gagne du terrain... Comme si à la place de cette petite vie, on m’avait mis un morceau de tristesse qui grandissait au fil des mois... J’ai de la tristesse dans le ventre. Dans le cœur. Ça envahit tout mon corps.
Madame les Etoiles, je sais pas quoi faire, j’suis là, à écrire ça devant mon ordinateur... Ça rime à pas grand chose. Mais j’avais besoin de poser ces mots quelque part...
Si j’avais eu un peu plus de maturité, et surtout une stabilité financière, ainsi qu’un plus grand cocon, je l’aurais gardé, même si c’était pour l’élever seule... C’est fou, la vie tient à des choses stupides.
Il aurait du naître en novembre. Novembre, chaque année, c’est le pire mois de mon année... C’est un mois de deuil, de chagrin, de froid. Je déteste novembre, je l’ai toujours dit et écrit, Novembre c’est nul. Et cette année ça va être encore plus douloureux.
Madame les Etoiles...
J’suis brisée de l’intérieur, et mon corps me le fait ressentir. Mon corps m’en veut...
On va avancer, doucement... 2019 sera mon pansement, je l’espère... J’ai besoin d’une année calme, et sereine, et réparatrice... Je garde espoir malgré le fait que j’ai envie de m’abîmer chaque jour. Je tiens bon. Je sais pas comment je fais, mais je tiens encore debout.
Madame les Etoiles ?
J’ai été prise à mon entretien, je sais pas si c’est grâce aux bonnes ondes des marins, celles de mes proches, ou mes prières nocturnes aux étoiles... Mais ça a marché. C’est déjà un petit point positif dans ma vie...