Stars

Well for some time I was thinking of blogging but was procastinating it for a long time .. until today ... A clear september night sky .. a couple of books on Subramanyam Chandrashekhar still fresh in mind .. and here I am gazing out of my bedroom window. Its 2 am in the middle of a cool night. Could it get better .. A peep outside and I see the constellation 'Cygnus'. They call it the northern cross or swan flying southwards .. all I see is the cross - the 3 stars going across and then theres Deneb right above the middle one .. Vega is there to the north of cygnus 45 deg below the intersection of the cross. Albiero, the bottommost star of the cross quite faint .. and then Altair on the other side completing the summer triangle. I am at a loss of words - to see the summer triangle which I have been wishing to see all this time and now its there at a glance outside the window. kudos to Deneb-Vega-Altair ! Now I wish to make the most of this opportunity. so here goes ... To the north of Vega I see the 2 bright stars of the constellation, Draco. This is where Draco begins, going high up in the sky it winds down again. Ursa major is prominent further down towards north. all the stars in draco are accounted for ! the northern part of cygnus is pretty crowded with stars. And now Cepheus debugged ! I first madea chart of what I saw and then looked at how cepheus is supposed to be .. and need I say it is humbling to see the resemblence .. I will go down now to have a better look at the sky. let us see how far my luck extends. From the east, Orion is clearly up. Betelgeuse, the red giant at a corner and lo above it is the red planet mars. This helps me to spot Auriga ! crystal clear. Castor and pollux of gemini have also made themselves visible on the east. Capella in auriga and algol in perseus are now going to be the fixed points for further exploration. Triangulum, Andromeda, Pegasus - it all seems pretty straightforward now. Either that or I am half-asleep. Aldebaran so majestically forms an equilateral triangle with mars and gamma orion (bellatrix). Aldebaran gives away taurus. And the triangulum gives away aries. Sirius so bright, its not bothered by the street light. And below gemini should be procyon of canis minor. well thats as much for today. With the artificial lights of planes landing at heathrow taking over. Its 5 am and time to sign off !