Late Night Stargazing

Last night after work I was at home "unwinding" in front of the TV set when I decided to walk around my backyard in the dark. Once I was outside, after noticing how really badly the lawn needed mowing, I decided to move the bench that was on the back porch over into the middle of the yard. Then I lied down on it, facing the sky above.

Where I live, the city lights aren't overpowering but still inhibit star gazing to the point where being able to see 5th magnitude stars is problematic. Still, at about 1:30 AM the sky was studded with stars. I instantly recognized the constellations (I was oriented toward the north): Hercules, with its trademark "Keystone" asterism on the left, and Draco's dragonhead beneath it to the north. Above Hercules I could make out the northernmost stars of Ophiuchus, a constellation that resembles Jabba the Hut when traditionally drawn and which technically should have been the 13th sign of the Zodiac (scholar William Harwood believes there were originally 13 signs and Ophiuchus was one of them). Overhead and to the right were the three great summer constellations of Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila, which respectively contain the stars composing my own asterism that I call the "Summer Triangle": Vega, Deneb, and Altair. Beyond these on the right, to the east, was the murky, darker section of the fall sky introducing Pegasus. To the west, beyond Hercules, was Bootes and Corona Borealis, and then trees obscuring my view. And turning my head down toward the house, I could see the Big Dipper asterism of the constellation Ursa Major, sideways with its handle up and spilling its imaginary contents onto my roof.

As I watched the sky, I noticed that Vega was only a few degrees from being directly overhead. And then I saw something I hadn't witnessed in quite a while. A bright, slow-moving meteor, beginning at about the northern fringe of "Jabba", streaked across the sky eastward, ending just a few degrees west of Altair.

All of this brought back memories of me as a kid in the 1960's in Hollywood, Florida, when I would also venture out at night into my backyard and observe the night sky, full it seemed of stars, summer lightning, fireflies, meteors, and the thick, overpowering smell of jasmine everywhere!