When most folks think of stargazing, they think of going out after dinner, taking in the stars, finding constellations and maybe poking a telescope at something celestial. That's wonderful and all, but let me remind you that stargazing is also a wonderful way to start your day, although it takes great discipline to get your derriere out of that nice warm bed. Believe me, I know that first hand. Once you get past that hurdle and get a nice big cup of coffee or hot cocoa, you can really enjoy the show.
In fact,the morning sky will be a better show than the evening over the next few weeks. First, the wonderful winter constellations dominate most of the southern half the sky from about midnight on. As it draws closer to morning twilight, the bright constellation Orion the Hunter and his surrounding gang of constellations shift over to the southwest heavens. These constellations, like Orion, Taurus, Gemini and others, are the best of the year in this stargazers opinion. I never get tired of seeing them.
In January, as the Earth continues its orbit around the sun, Orion and his gang will dominate the evening sky, so consider your view of them in the morning this week as preview of great evening stargazing to come.
Nestled in those bright winter constellations is the very bright planet Jupiter nearing its closest approach to Earth in 2012. More on the Jovian monster planet in the coming weeks in Starwatch.
While you're morning stargazing this week, you may see a few more meteors or "shooting stars" than normal. That's because the annual Leonid meteor shower is building and will peak next weekend. The Leonids are not the best meteor shower of the year, but I would put them in the upper tier. What makes them attractive this year is that there's no moonlight in the early morning hours, leaving a much darker backdrop in the sky for catching those "falling stars."
Annual meteor showers like the Leonid occur when Earth, in its orbit around the sun, plows into debris behind a comet. Comets are more or less "dirty snowballs" of rock and ice that orbit the sun in highly elliptical elongated orbits. When their orbits take them close the sun, they partially melt and leave a debris trail made up of particles about the size of small marbles. The comet that fuels the Leonid Meteor Shower is called Temple Tuttle that last came by this part of the solar system in 1998 and won't return again until 2031. The Earth in its solar orbit is busting into this trail at 66,000 mph and, at the same time, these individual comet debris particles are whizzing along at thousands of miles an hour as well. This means that the debris can crash into our atmosphere at speeds more than 150,000 mph.
With that kind of speed, individual particles quickly burn up due to tremendous air friction and we see the quick streaks of light decorate the celestial dome. The light we see isn't because of the combustion of the debris. There's no way you could see that because these tiny particles are burning up 50 to 150 miles away. The streak we see is the glowing column of air being chemically excited by the particle that's ripping through it. Sometimes you see different colors that indicate the kinds of gas being temporarily aroused.
Meteors in a meteor shower are best seen after midnight, because that's when you're on the side of the rotating Earth that's plowing into the comet debris. It's kind of like driving cross county on a warm summer night. You get more bugs smashed on your front windshield than you do on your rear window. After midnight, we're facing the "front windshield" of the traveling Earth.
The Leonid meteor shower is not named for the old Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev. They're called the Leonids because the meteors seem to emanate from the general direction in the sky where the constellation where Leo the Lion is poised. After midnight, Leo is hanging in the eastern sky and looks a backward question mark. That makes Leo the radiant of this meteor shower.
You know they're part of the Leonids because their "tails" seem to point back in the general direction of Leo the Lion. That doesn't mean that you should restrict your meteor hunting to just that area of the heavens. If you do, you'll miss many of them because the meteors can show up anywhere in the sky.
The best way to watch for the Leonids or any other meteor shower is to lie back on a lawn chair with blankets sometime after midnight, preferably after 2 or 3 a.m., roll your eyes all around the night sky and see how many meteors you spot in a given hour. It is a fun group or family activity because you can keep each other awake and have multiple eyes all around the heavens, have a great time and keep each other a wake.
(Lynch is an amateur astronomer and is author of the book, "Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations.")