Nightly Observations: 3.1

So far this quarter my observations have been slightly sporadic. Nonetheless though, I have been able to do a pretty consistent observation of the Southern sky near my Osprey home. Usually when I do my observations, and over the past few weeks, I can at least identify distinctly where the constellation Orion is, thanks to its signature 'Belt' (it is usually found rather high in the Southeastern sky). Also obviously I have been able to find the Moon (hoorah!) which last night and the night before in particular, was a very bright and sharp crescent. Two very new things happened to me this quarter though, that I feel the need to share. One of them actually happened over Winter Break once already, so I was not as surprised when I saw it. This was the appearance of an phosphorescent 'halo' around the Moon on one clear Friday night, which is caused by the Moon's light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Also this quarter I finally made good use of the Evening Sky Maps which we have been given each month. With this paper, I was very astonished to realize, that I could actually identify almost every constellation of stars what was visible in the sky that particular night. Specifically these astronomical objects included, Auriga and Capella, Gemini and the Twins, Perseus, Taurus and the Pleiades, Betelgeuse and Rigel, Mars, and Sirius. This was a most incredible experience for me, as I got to see first hand just how predictable and cool these constellations are when you can find them and point them out. I was also very surprised to notice, that constellations are BIG (I had vaguely known this before, but never truly realized it) just identifying these 4 or so constellations, took up the entire night sky of stars above my head. Truly using this Sky Map is very helpful, and I will be sure to bring it outside with me in future observation sessions.