Night Sky Photography -- 05-07-2023 -- The Waning Gibbous Moon & The Heart of the Scorpion

Late last night -- or very early in the morning depending on how you might look at it -- I was about to capture three really good night sky photos.

In my first photo, I was able to capture most of the major stars of the Constellation Scorpius The Scorpion just above the tree line to the south. The Waning Gibbous Moon can be seen right next to the constellation's brightest star, Antares (also known as the Heart of the Scorpion).

My second photo is a wider shot showing our beautiful Luna, the visible stars of Scorpius The Scorpion, and the interesting asterism known as "The Teapot" which is a part of the larger Constellation Sagittarius The Archer. The last photo is a close-up photo of the features of the Waning Gibbous Moon and the bright star, Antares.

Antares is the 15th brightest star visible in our night sky and lies about 550 light-years (or 170 parsecs) from our Solar System. Its also nearly 10,000 times as bright as our own Sun.

While Antares appears to be a single star when viewed with the naked eye here on Earth, but it's actually a binary star system, with two components called Alpha Scorpii A and Alpha Scorpii B. The brighter of the pair (a Scorpii A) is the red supergiant star that we can see, while the fainter star is a hot white main sequence star similar to our own Sun which is classified as a G-type main sequence star. Both stars are believed to be separated by about 529 AUs.

The name Antares comes from a Greek phrase meaning "the rival of Ares" (or in this case, the rival of the planet Mars) and was probably given because of the star’s red-orange color and brightness similar to that of our small, red planetary neighbor. Unlike Mars however, Antares is very large, with an estimated radius of around 800 million miles (or 8.6 AUs). So large that, if it were replaced with our own Sun, Antares would envelop all the inner planets of our Solar System!

Well I hope y'all enjoyed this presentation and my photographs. Have a wonderful Dixie day and y'all come back now, ya hear!

Night Sky Photography -- 06-02-2022 -- Three Summer Constellations: Saguttarius, Scorpius & Libra

Good evening fellow stargazers!

With the summer solstice only a few weeks away, some of the more prominent summer constellations are again beginning to appear in the skies here in South Carolina.

Last last night about an hour after midnight I was able to capture a great shot of three of these low-lying constellations in the southern sky just over the trees: the Constellations Scorpius The Scorpion, Libra The Scales, and the "teapot" asterism of Sagittarius The Archer.

The brightest star of the Constellation Scorpius is the red supergiant star Antares -- the Heart of the Scorpion -- and the fifteenth-brightest star in the night sky. Once you locate that star, the rest of the Scorpion is easy to find.

Closest to the head of the Scorpion are Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) and Zubeneschamail (Beta Librae), the two brightest stars of the nearby Constellation Libra. 

The final Constellation, Sagittarius The Archer, is a bit trickier since its lower on the horizon and you need a higher place to spot the whole constellation. As seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellation's brighter stars form an easily recognizable asterism known as "the Teapot" which I outlined in the photo.

If you are fortunate enough to live someplace with far less light pollution than I do, it might be possible to see with the right light filters on your telescope, or camera, the densest part of our own Milky Way galaxy center, which is located between Scorpius and Sagittarius. 

Using the tip of the "spout" of the Teapot in roughly a line between that star and Antares, you can locate the Galactic Center where a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) sits. I highlighted the approximate location in my photo above.

Throughout the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere these three constellations will remain largely visible along the southern horizon.

I hope y'all enjoyed my photos and presentation, have a wonderful evening and as always keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear!