{"id":288,"date":"2011-06-19T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=288"},"modified":"2011-06-18T18:35:29","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T18:35:29","slug":"an-armed-half-man-half-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/19\/an-armed-half-man-half-horse\/","title":{"rendered":"An armed half-man, half-horse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomy blog for the week ending June 25, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

A half-man half-horse trots across the summer skies. Much of the world gets only a fleeting glimpse. Sagittarius is a southern constellation. From the northern half of North America, Europe, and other places at those latitudes, part of Sagittarius is up for just a few hours.<\/p>\n

\"Sagittarius,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sagittarius, sometimes known by other names, has been an arrow shooter for thousands of years. In recent centuries, part of this constellation has come to be known as \u201cthe teapot\u201d. Those of us too far north to see all of Sagittarius can see only the teapot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The stars of Sagittarius have mostly Arabic names. For three of them, one Arabic word is combined with Latin words to clarify their locations. Kaus Borealis, Kaus Media, and Kaus Australis are the northern, middle, and southern bow stars, respectively. Kaus Borealis is the top of the teapot\u2019s lid if you prefer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once you know which stars they are, it\u2019s not hard to imagine a curved line linking them as to form a bow. It\u2019s also easy to remember Alnasl, the arrow\u2019s tip where the teapot spout would be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nunki would seem to be the arrow\u2019s tail. However, that\u2019s actually an ancient Babylonian name for a capital city in the sky. It\u2019s in the teapot\u2019s handle. At the bottom of the handle is the unflatteringly named Ascella. That\u2019s Latin for armpit and is where our archer\u2019s armpit would be.<\/p>\n

\"Sagittarius,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For those who get to see the rest of Sagittarius, Rukbat (knee in Arabic) is the star in the creature\u2019s knee. And he has an Arkab, or Achilles tendon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Centaur is a word for a half-man half-horse creature. But since another constellation is already named Centaur, we should be careful using the word. Sagittarius is a centaur, but don\u2019t call it Centaur<\/em> or the Centaur<\/em>. Call it the Archer<\/em> instead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One way to find Sagittarius is by looking east of Scorpio, the subject of a recent SkyCaramba blog. Most viewers will look southward to find Scorpio, and Sagittarius will be a little to the left. If you\u2019re far enough south that Scorpio is to the north, look to the right.<\/p>\n

\"Sagittarius,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The teapot\u2019s on the meridian (a line overhead going from north to south) around midnight local time (add an hour for summer time if you do that in your location) at the end of June. Subtract an hour for every 15 days after that to determine when it will be highest in the sky. By the middle of August, it\u2019ll be there at 9pm.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sagittarius is worth a look through binoculars. With minimal light gathering power, you should be able to see about a dozen star clusters and nebulae and thousands of faint stars! Sometimes, you\u2019ll come across relatively dark streaks where interstellar dust blocks from view whatever\u2019s behind it.\u00a0 The densest star field is in the area of the bow and arrow. Maybe in the right conditions, that spiral of the Milky Way Galaxy will look like steam from the teapot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astronomy blog for the week ending June 25, 2011 A half-man half-horse trots across the summer skies. Much of the world gets only a fleeting glimpse. Sagittarius is a southern constellation. From the northern half of North America, Europe, and other places at those latitudes, part of Sagittarius is up for just a few hours. … Continue reading An armed half-man, half-horse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[148,149,121,147],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}