Stargazing This Week

This was originally published in our Weekly Newsletter. Each weekend we’ll treat you to stargazing tips and the latest physics news. You can sign up here! Also check out Stellarium for an open-source star map.

As we approach the summer solstice, the nightly window for stargazing keeps shrinking - especially up here near the Canadian border
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Inner Planet Party
This week the inner planets are all aggregating to the Northwest in the evening. Look for them together before midnight, with the waxing crescent moon, and the twin stars Pollux and Castor.

Hard to See Hydra
If you want to sharpen your astronomical skills, try identifying the constellation Hydra. This week it’s stretched out along the Southern horizon. Most of Hydra’s stars are on the faint side - magnitude 4+, although the brightest, Alphard, is 2.13 and lies about a third of the way from its head.

Constellations, Generally
Constellations serve a technical purpose - they help identify what part of the “celestial sphere” you’re looking at. They’re kind of like a countries on a astronomical map. Deep space objects like galaxies or dynamic objects like supernovae are often “tagged” by what constellation they’re in. Hydra - the water snake - was used in some capacity by the Babylonian and the Greeks, is still in technical use today. You can find M48 (a open star cluster), M68 (globular cluster), NCG3242 (Ghost of Jupiter Nebula) and M83(the southern pinwheel galaxy, Hubble has a great shot of it.).