Everyone's an amateur astronomer!

Astronomy is suddenly cool, it seems! This morning one colleague came in and said, “I saw Mars last night!” Another said, “I saw Mars this morning, and possibly Venus too!” I said, “I think i might have seen Mercury this morning!” and another colleague sent us all an email alerting us to the Geminids meteor shower coming up this Friday! :D Yet another colleague was explaining to some others how you can find Mars very easily because Orion is pointing directly to it at the moment. The first colleague said, “I looked for the Plough but couldn’t find it” and i was all like, “Ahhh, the Plough comes up about 10 or 11 o’clock at the moment!” GET ME!! A few weeks ago i wouldn’t have been able to point out the Plough if i was staring directly at it!!

This is very exciting!! I am with my cousins on Friday evening when the best of the meteor shower will occur. I so hope to be able to take them out into the garden after the piano lesson and introduce them to the delights of cosmology and star-gazing! :) These days i can’t help but notice constellations and planets. I was just out for my run and Mars just kept catching my eye all the time! It is a very good time of year with these dark, clear nights.

My run was a bit slippery, though. I had to be careful. It is definitely getting easier – i am noticing a pattern: Monday night is hard because it’s a new programme. Mid-week is way easier than Monday by comparison. Saturday is hard, i think simply because i go early in the morning and i’m not properly awake yet. I do like to do it that way, though. If i left it until later in the day i’d probably be putting it off and feel bad about it. The hardest thing is actually to get the shoes on and get out there. As soon as i’m in to it, i’ve got the music playing, and i just know i’m going to do this for the next half an hour and come home again. It’s easy. I’m start to feel a bit like a robot: i run when i’m told to and i walk when i’m told to. I generally end up doing 2.5 to 3 miles. No big deal, but i love the feeling of getting fit and healthy! :)

Nice weekend

We have our good friend Nat with us for the weekend, and are having a lovely time together.

I got up early yesterday and went for my run. I saw both Venus and Mars, with a nice half-moon between the two, plus a whole lot of stars. It was beautiful. My run was a bit harder yesterday. I don’t know if it’s because it was so early in the morning, or if i was hungry, or maybe because my right leg felt slightly twisted. Two of my 60-second runs were also up steep hills, which made it very hard. I also missed a turning and ended up going a much longer route, so had a long walk home after i had finished the programme. Still, i made it, and i am going to download Week 2 for tomorrow evening.

Nat and i went out into Winchester, went to see the Great Hall, and were pleased to find a nice sculpture exhibition by Bill Woodrow. We spent most of the day wandering round town, doing little bits of shopping. Had a horrible lunch in Subway (note to self: never visit Subway in Winchester again!) and a lovely coffee in Costa. Happily you can ask for fair trade, decaffeinated coffee with soya milk and they make it just the way you want it for no extra cost.

We didn’t get to Library 2.0 (aka the new Discovery Centre) but i am looking forward to visiting that soon.

Last night was great for seeing stars! I saw Orion, and found Mars again quite easily. I saw the Triangulum (M33) Galaxy clear as anything, but i was like, “Hmmm, what is that cluster of stars in a triangle shape?” and i had to go on heavens-above.com to find out it was a major galaxy! Just before i went to bed i am sure i saw the Plough. It makes me really happy to find these patterns in the stars that people have been observing for millennia.

Okay, going to get my keyboard out and make music with Nat! :)

Stargazing – i saw Pegasus!

It is a beautiful clear night, perfect for seeing the stars. During my run i went along the road out of town, and i saw LOADS of stars as soon as i got out of the street lights. Unfortunately it was too dark to see the pavement, so i had to turn back. But just inside the street lights you can still see a lot of stars, out of the glare of the city centre.

Anyway, when i got home i had a look from the balcony (which conveniently points due South) and to my gasp of surprise i saw the square of Pegasus! My immediate reaction was “Oh wow, so it’s true then! There really are shapes in the stars!” I ran to get the little pocket guide, and managed to trace the whole of Pegasus, up to Andromeda and, though i couldn’t see it, i knew that just above there must be the Andromeda (M31) Galaxy! Who knew astronomy could be so thrilling!

I came back to Pegasus and looked just below to find the pentagon of stars that make up the head of Pisces but i could not make out the tail. Still, now i know it’s just a short walk away to a place where i will be able to see the stars so much more clearly … and if i just get a pair of binoculars … wow … who knows what i might see! I read that the night sky can become a lifelong friend, and you feel a joy at seeing favourite constellations return year after year. I can truly believe it! :)

So this week i have discovered two new hobbies that i could grow to love: running and astronomy. Thanks to Nye for the former, and to the planet Venus for the latter! :D

Meeting my inner astronomy geek

It is a well known fact that i am all kinds of geeky. I enjoy programming, i have a slightly suspicious interest in busses and trains, and i have recently become very interested in cosmology, quantum physics, parallel universes, string theory and a ten-dimensional universe! Well i think i have just discovered another geeky interest: astronomy!

It all started when i saw that planet on Friday morning, which as it happens was Venus, not Mercury. In actual fact, it probably started before then, when i read “The Whole Shebang” by Timothy Ferris. No, in actual fact i have been interested in the Moon and eclipses my whole life, in the same way as many people have a vague interest.

Anyway, i have a new test team leader now, who has moved to sit next to me, and turns out to be a total stargazer! I mentioned seeing the planet, and was immediately pointed to heavens-above.com where you can enter your latitude and longitude, and it tells you exactly what to look for, at what times of the year/month/night – all the stars, planets and satellites you may see!

You can even calculate a map of the stars for any given time, which is how i know that the planet i saw was Venus. Here is the map on Saturday morning at 7am, and there was Venus, in the South-East, exactly where i saw it:

Of course, there was Mercury, close to the Sun. That’s the position where the Sun rose on Saturday morning! It’s all starting to make sense! Oh, this is all kinds of awesome!!!

Apparently some kids take Astronomy GCSE!! Just like at Hogwarts!! Maybe that’s what i should do – join an evening class and study astronomy. I certainly find it fascinating, especially as you can even look out and see Andromeda, our nearest galaxy, who is like a twin to our Milky Way. But we see it as it was 3000 years ago. It’s exciting to think of intelligent life somewhere in Andromeda, who scan the heavens and look out to our galaxy, seeing the light that left us 3000 years ago! Quite amazing, in fact!

A telescope would be a pretty fantastic Christmas present! Or even a pair of binoculars would do well! :D

Pictures of Mercury

UPDATE: I have since discovered that this planet is Venus, not Mercury!!

I’m no photographer, but i managed to capture a few nice images of Mercury this morning. I am pretty pleased with these – even my very average camera couldn’t miss Mercury today, it was so bright! Click on any picture for the full-size image.

Shame i can’t upload them to flickr. It hasn’t been working for me for the last couple of weeks – it just times out.