Let’s Star Hop Around The Night Sky
Fasten your seat belts, because we are in full gear for recognizing the stars! The first star that we will look for is Polaris, and there are two ways to locate it.
(For a background information on astronomy and the night sky, checkout Scientific and Mystic Wonders of the Night Sky)
Locating Polaris
The first way is to look for this pattern, that appears like a pair of baseless triangles, hovering side-by-side, forming the letter M:
Fortunately for us, this pattern is unique in the whole of night sky. If you start looking for triangles, you will find them everywhere! So that’s not very useful. But this pattern is unique. This is the constellations of Cassiopeia. The Greek way to remember it is to view a queen, sitting on a royal chair. Now take the inner line segment of the smaller triangle — that is the line that connects Gamma Cassiopeia and Ruchbah, take its midpoint and start moving perpendicular to it, down the constellation (see picture below).
Keep looking down and down in the same direction until you catch the first bright star — Polaris! Congratulations — you have located the north star. Now why is Polaris called the north star? For that you have to remember that earth has an elliptical shape, Earth rotates from east to west so all the stars (including the sun) rise from the east and set in the west. So they always seem moving. You can’t say that this star is always on the east, or that star is always on the west. Makes sense? However, this distinct star, Polaris, is situated near to the north pole. So even when the earth rotates, this star still stays near the north pole.
It might become invisible from time-to-time, by being veiled behind the earth, but it is localized in the direction of the north pole. And this has been the case for more than hundreds of years. The significance of this star is that if we locate it, we now know where the north is. No matter what the season, locating this star means that you have located north. And once you have located north, you know that the opposite direction is south, right to the north is east and left to the north is west. This is how in ancient times, ships used to navigate and come to know the directions in which to move.
Polaris is part of the constellation of Ursa Minor. Ursa Minor constellation is shaped like this:
So you have “hopped” from the constellation of Cassiopeia to Ursa Minor. This activity is termed as star hopping. You recognize the constellation and you know that left to this constellation is this constellation. You hop onto that and keep hopping all your way across the night sky, eventually recognizing all the constellations. For a myriad of constellations, it is necessary to star hop in order to recognize them, because many constellations have almost similar shapes. Canis Minor for example, looks like a line segment between two stars.
Now if I ask you to find Canis Minor, then almost every pair of stars will look like Canis Minor to you. Similarly, Camelopardalis and Triangulum are both triangle shaped constellations. Now if you start spotting triangles in the night sky, then they are almost everywhere. And not just that, when you look at the night sky, you don’t only see the major constellations — you also witness the less bright stars behind or near them. Although it is a wonderful awe of beauty, and the decoration of sprinkled stars around the bigger stars is what gets you in awe, they make it very difficult for you to recognize the stars without star hopping. If you view a star map, you will recognize all the constellations fairly easily. But when you view the night sky, it looks like a completely different image. Star maps don’t account for the smaller stars. Hence it is essential to star hop.
Orion
But some constellations are so unique, that you can spot them from almost everywhere. Take Orion for example. Orion has this beautiful bright pattern of three stars, called the Orion belt. You can spot the Orion belt from even urban areas. Orion belt is named after Orion the hunter in Greek mythology. Orion according to the Greek myth, was a ferocious hunter who would kill any animal standing in his way. Artemis the archer, was the sister of Apollo. Artemis was a dedicated archer who never had a love interest. All she cared about was her endeavors as an archer and partying with her nymphs. However, when she came to know about Orion, she became romantically interested in him.
So she started becoming friends with him (yeah right, apparently Greeks had that too). On seeing this, her brother Apollo, became jealous of Orion as now Orion seemed to have all her attention (yeah, Greeks were weird, man!). But this was one person Apollo could do nothing about. Whatever he sent against Orion, Orion killed it. Orion had this huge club which he used to defeat his preys. Eventually Apollo came up with an evil plan of appointing a scorpion to kill Orion. As Orion could hunt large beasts with his giant club, it was of no use against a little scorpion. Poor Orion tried to survive but ultimately the scorpion bit its venom into him — and Orion died.
When Artemis came to know of Orion’s demise, she was devastated. She was broken and in ruins — she would mourn Orion for days and days. Seeing this, Apollo felt a surge of guilt. He then took Orion and placed him as a constellation. When Artemis saw him in the sky, she was relieved. This kind of redeemed Apollo. However, a part of him still envied Orion, so in the day, Orion would disappear and reappear in the night. Of course this is just a false story, but it’s interesting. (Side note: I don’t believe in Greek mythology).
So now back to Orion belt. When you have spotted these three bright stars in a straight line in proximity to each other, if you look upwards from there, you see the shape of Orion’s torso, and above that torso, on one side, you should be able to see a bright red cute star, called Betelgeuse (pronounced as Beetle juice). Above this shoulder are two stars that look like Orion’s right arm is lifted upwards, holding his giant club, while he is holding from his other hand (right in front of his chest) a small lion — so it looks like he is beating up this poor lion with his club. I like to see Orion constellation as a person taking out an arrow from his quiver, while holding a bow in his other hand, but well, that’s the Greek story. Underneath the Orion belt are his knees and near to his left knee is the glamorous Orion nebula.
If you hop from the top of Orion’s bow (or lion’s head), some distance to its left a few units to its top, you would have hopped onto the Taurus constellation. Taurus constellation is shaped like a donkey with its huge pointy ears. The face of Taurus is towards the top of Orion’s bow, and it seems as though Orion is missing a shot at Taurus by a few inches. See? My notion of bow and arrow makes more sense than beating a lion with a club! Now, the pointy ear of Taurus near to Orion is the second bright red star in this area, called Aldebaran (named by an Arabic astronomer). So these are the only two visible bright red stars in this area. Therefore, if you find a third bright red object in vicinity, know that you have spotted the planet Mars!
And that is how you spot planets: you recognize the bright stars, and when you see a bright star-like object that’s not a star — then it’s a planet. Now there can be asteroids or comets, but these are rare events that you can keep a look out for. But normally it’s a planet. And the other thing about planets is, they are not as far from us as those stars — they are within our solar system — so you can see them changing their relative positions. Mars for example, does not always stay in the area near Orion and Taurus. In fact, you can spot the same planet in two different relative positions within the same night.
Now you can star hop from Taurus onto Aries, or Auriga. Aries and Taurus are standing back to back. And the way you hop onto Auriga is by knowing that the point of the large pointy ear of Taurus, is a star called Elnath that is shared by both Taurus and Auriga constellations. After that you just need to know the shape of Auriga in order to see it. You can also hop onto Gemini from Orion and Auriga. Now we can star hop like this all night (or day if you are reading this in the day), but let’s answer an important question.
Why do we need to star hop?
Why do we need to star hop? The answer is, because it’s interesting! Period. Okay, I will be more clear. When you go to an astronomy trip, you are strictly prohibited from using your mobile phones, because mobile phones emanate what is called white light. This light emanates not from only mobile phones, but from car’s headlights, bulbs etc. And when you have white light, it won’t let you see the stars for almost an hour.
You may be wondering by now that okay, this all star hopping business seems nice and comprehensible, but when I look up at the sky, I don’t see these constellations you speak of. This is because you live possibly in an urban area, or an area with a lot of white lights. Hence stars don’t become visible to you, except a few. So white light is bad for stargazing, whether it’s from your mobile phone, bulbs or even the moon! Since you can’t use your mobile phones, it’s very useful to learn the constellations and your way through a star map before you go there.
Furthermore, when you have to locate a comet, a meteorite or any event, you come to know that this rare object is located between these constellations for like 5 days. So unless you know your way through the night sky, you will miss this event — unless you catch it by sheer luck of course!
Star hopping is not just an activity for the naked eye. You can also use binoculars to star hop. The way to do that is a bit different and also the experience is different. But the idea is still the same.
I hope you enjoyed this session. There are a lot of topics to talk about so stay tuned for further amazing content. If you had a good read, remember to like and follow.
By the ways
There is a second way to locate Polaris — and it is to hop onto it from Ursa Major (also called Big Dipper).
Take the head of this question mark, and keep moving in its direction. The first bright star you see in that path is Polaris.
