FINAL Star Gazing Guide

June 12-18, 2020
 Bare Dark Sky Observatory


Photo of Milky Way taken by Jeremy Bare at the
Mayland Earth to Sky Park
Greetings Fellow StarGazers!
It is the sincere wish of the Milky Way Cowboys that all of you, your family, and your closest friends have survived the Covid-19 pandemic. We also hope and pray that our nation can heal in several positive directions.

Based on your responses to our Star Gazing Guides, several of you have gained a new passion for searching the night sky. As we move into the summer months, let’s do a quick review of the topics our Star Gazing Guides have covered since April 4.
A Look Back … To Look Up
One of the goals of our sending out the weekly Star Gazing (SG) Guides has been to share basic astronomy information to enhance your night sky experience. We know that some of our material is a bit overwhelming for those of you who are new to astronomy. We also admit that most of what we covered was basic review for you more experienced amateur astronomers. We believe that the more people know about the night sky, the more fun we all have when you visit BDSO. For convenience, all of our weekly SG Guides can be downloaded HERE from the Mayland Community College website (scroll to the bottom of the page) or can you can click on the individual links below to go to a specific one.

SG Guide April 4-9 : Link to Constellation Guide Map; sky map app suggestions; Orion the Hunter and his belt stars; Sirius-the brightest star; the six Winter Hexagon stars and constellations; pre-dawn viewing of Jupiter, Saturn & Mars.
SG Guide April 10-16 : Venus fun facts; Pleiades and its legends; light speed; Big Dipper pointer stars; Polaris the North Pole Star; the Little Dipper; Comet Atlas; upcoming April 21 Lyrid Meteor Shower; ISS viewing info.
Two Guys Edition - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star : Identifying what is a star vs. a planet by sight; albedo-reflected brightness of planets & moons; measuring apparent magnitude (brightness) of night sky objects; Mars fun facts; advantages of binoculars; traveling to the nearest star.
SG Guide April 24-30 : Seasonal night sky changes; Gemini & Leo the Lion constellations; Thuban the former north pole star; why the celestial north pole star changes; Little Dipper legend; SpaceX Starlink Satellites.
Two Guys Edition - My Very Energetic Mother : The eight planets in our solar system; why Pluto is classified a dwarf planet; Charles Messier and his 110 deep space discoveries; night vision; utilizing averted vision.
BDSO Construction & Opening Updates : Landscaping with indigenous NC flora; ten new telescope and astrophotography viewing stations; BDSO hill pathways; new parking lot; moon garden; re-open July 10.
SG Guide May 15-21 : Saying goodbye to winter & spring constellations; Comet Swan; what Nebula are; different types of Nebula.
SG Guide May 22-28 : BDSO opening update; star hopping; Comet Swan viewing update; what Star Clusters are; favorite open & globular clusters.
Two Guys Edition-Battling Light Pollution : Preserving BDSO for future generations; defining & identifying light pollution; costly negative effects of light pollution; best practices and simple action steps to preserve our night sky.
SG Guide June 5-11 : Comet Swan update; Jupiter fun facts and its moons; Saturn fun facts and its rings.
The June Night Sky
June begins our favorite season to stargaze at BDSO. As twilight fades into darkness, three of the brightest (near magnitude 1) stars that are hard to miss are Vega in Lyra, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, and Deneb in Cygnus the Swan – they form the Summer Triangle. (Hopefully, past BDSO guests remember the Asian love story connected with these stars). If you are stargazing away from city lights, you should be able to see the Milky Way trailing overhead from The Teapot “asterism” (familiar pattern of stars) in Sagittarius, threading through the Summer Triangle, up past Cephus, and then into Cassiopeia. A great tool to help you visualize the path of the Milky Way through these six constellations is the Evening Sky Map for June 2020 downloaded from HERE .
Other constellations and their most prominent stars to investigate this summer with binoculars and the naked eye are: Leo the Lion (featuring Regulus & Denebola), Virgo (with Spica), Bootes (with Arcturus), Scorpius (with Antares), Ursa Major (with the North Pole pointer stars) Ursa Minor (with Polaris), Draco the Dragon (with Thuban), Pegasus (featuring the Great Square), and the Corona Borealis. For those of you with a telescope, the number of deep sky galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae within these constellations should keep you engaged all summer. Oh, and you might want to check out Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Neptune as they chase the Tea Pot in the eastern and southern skies. Remember to preserve your night vision if you’re utilizing a sky app.
Journey to Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in our Solar System. At a distance of about 2.7 billion miles when closest to us, it’s the only planet not visible to the naked eye. However, a good pair of binoculars or small telescope can help bring the vivid blue orb into view.

Neptune fun facts:
  • Neptune is an ice giant and was first discovered in 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.
  • It is the fourth largest planet. Consider that if Earth was the size of a nickel, Neptune would be a baseball.
  • Neptune has 14 moons, of which Triton is the largest and can be viewed in binoculars. Triton is the only large moon in our Solar System to circle a planet in the opposite direction of the planet’s rotation.
  • One day (rotation) on Neptune is 16 hours, 6 minutes. Neptune’s revolution around the Sun takes 165 Earth years.
  • Neptune tilts at 28 degrees (Earth’s is 23 degrees) on an axis causing it to also have four seasons. Since its year is so long, each season lasts over forty years!
  • Neptune’s average temperature is -3920 F, making it the coldest planet in our Solar System.
  • The winds on Neptune whip at speeds over 1,200 mph. The Earth-sized dark spots are gigantic storms that tend to appear and then disappear over several years.
  • The blue color that we see is caused by methane in the hydrogen and helium rich atmosphere. As the methane absorbs the red light spectrum of the Sun’s light, it reflects blue light.
  • Neptune has at least five faint rings composed of ice and dust. They are very difficult to see because they are dark and vary in density and size.
  • The gas surface of Neptune is not solid and would not support human life.

If we could travel at the speed of light, we could reach Neptune in about 4 hours. In the 2019 movie Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt, he amazingly travels from Mars to Neptune in 80 days. Perhaps one day humans will be able to make such a journey. In the meantime, our only spacecraft to have made a flyby of Neptune was Voyager 2 back in 1989. Traveling at 40,000 mph, it left Earth in 1977 and took 12 years to arrive within 3,000 miles of Neptune’s north pole.

Food for thought : One astute point that Ad Astra makes is that before we go out searching for alien life, perhaps we ought to learn to have a greater appreciation for human life here on our own planet. 
What’s Next
With the Bare Dark Sky Observatory reopening soon, we are opting to take a break from sending out the weekly Star Gazing Guides. It’s time to enjoy the summer weather and put to use what we have learned. Hopefully, we will meet you all under a beautiful star-filled dark sky. Until then, we are attaching the link to the summer & fall BDSO community viewing night schedule HERE . Remember that we are also available for private party rentals. E-mail us for information on private rentals.

We leave you with a thought-provoking quote which reminds us that as we gaze at the stars, the point of light that reaches our eyes took a bit of time to get here:
“Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light had not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we are alone?”   - Ransom Riggs

Keep Looking UP! 
Jeremy & Steve
BDSO Staff