know the stars and constellations

Congratulations, this is a great goal. I learned them when I was young and they’re like old friends as they pass over year by year. Watching the planets wander through the sky is magical as well and you can pick them out fairly quickly once you know the constellations. That star that looks out of place is probably a planet…
A good aid to learning them is to get one of the many computer programs out there. they’re fairly cheap (there might even be some on shareware by now) and you can plug in the date and your city and see what’s above you at that moment.

Last night, my brother, his son, my friend J. and I sat on the deck, listening to an awesome, if old, album and looking at the stars. The stars were strangely visible—usually we might pick out one or two bright ones but living in even this little town, it is difficult to see much more b/c of the “light pollution.” But last night, the whole sky was filled! I’m not sure what we were able to pick out: I usually get my bearings by finding the dippers but, we were, after all, still in town and houses and trees still impeded our view. I couldn’t seem to find a spot, a constellation, to start on…But anyway, it was fun just speculating about what might be Cepheus or Cassiopeia or Libra or Scorpius and then trying to figure out what might be next to them…

I really tried to do this last night. But at 10pm, even in our very little town, there is so much light from houses and street lamps and businesses, that it is virtually impossible to see anything. I could see 2 bright stars that were probably actually planets or UFO’s (heehee) but could not get any reference points beyond the trees and houses and splashes of light. I’m going to have to go out to a field, behind sister S’s house or Mom and Dad’s…
It’s going to require planning, I think…

While at the library this morning, I picked out some books on astronomy. Adult and children’s levels.
It’s amazing what 43T can do.
Ha ha.

My dad can pick out stars and knows the names of a lot of them, probably not as much as I remember but still… That’s my memory of it… we would go outside or stay outside if we came home after dark and stare up, dad yelling in for mom to turn off the house lights, and we’d gaze up and up and up. I want to be able to tell my children the names of constellations and stars…