Starcast 4 of 2021. Middle to end February. Last time I told you about asterisms These are patterns made by the stars that are either within a single constellation, or cut across several constellations. Examples known to most are: 1. Orion’s belt ( in Orion) 2. The Southern Cross ( in Crux) 3. The False […]
Category: Blog
Starcast 3 of 2021: 1 to 15 Feb 2021
Starcast 3 of 2021. Looking north at 9.pm, Capella is the bright star just above the horizon traced out by the Swartberg. Joel will miss out on Capella. Looking higher and northwest, a dimming Mars, now only magnitude. 0.5, has drifted out of Pisces and into Aries. Look for the conspicuous pair ( Hamal and […]
Precession – why you’re water carrying sea goat.
Hello Stargazers When the ancients formalised the 12 Signs of the Zodiac, it literally meant that the current sign was the constellation where the sun was located. So, as we are the middle of the Aquarius cycle ( January 20 to February 18), we would expect that looking westwards just after sunset, we would see […]
De Rust Skies 15-31 Jan 2021
Welcome to starcast 2 of 2021. Now that we’re all settled into 2021 and Uncle Cyril had us under curfew for another month, what better than to look to the heavens and at least know what’s going on up there. Facing north: With Jupiter and Saturn now hiding in the sun’s glare, Mars is the […]
De Rust skies 1-15 Jan 2021
New years greetings stargazers. So we bid farewell to Jupiter and Saturn, who have kept us occupied with a stunning display. Darkskyes planetary pickings will be slim until around July/August when Saturn and Jupiter approach opposition and are very visible at a reasonable hour, again. Until then we will have to be happy with Mercury, […]