Have you seen Orion lately?
March 13th, 2007 Ten years ago, back in early 1997, I would be constantly looking up to the night sky to marvel at the fabulous tails of comet Hale-Bopp. It was pure magic to be able to see such a rare bird with the naked eye.
One day I met a group of friends in Paris at night, and while we where walking to wherever we were to spend the evening, I talked about the comet.
- The comet, what comet?
- This comet (finger-pointing gesture to an unnatural elevation angle).
- Uh? Wait. Wow! just Wow! Dammit! And you say this thing has been here for a month without us seeing it?
When I rode back home from the train station this winter, Orion was straight before my eyes, showing me the way. My armed hunter to see me home safe after a long day’s work.
Orion is a winter constellation (at least in the northern hemisphere). Seeing Orion means looking at the night sky during a period we do not generally associate with star-watching. So if you have seen Orion lately, it means:
a - you live in an area where you have a nice unpolluted night sky
b - you care to observe stuff and can still be enchanted by whatever beauty the universe has on offer
c - you care about constellations that are not in your horoscope
Therefore you can’t be an entirely bad person.
I can’t believe it’s been ten whole years since Hale-Bopp! Meanwhile, I have a lovely memory of being a teenager and volunteering to go along with my father to unlock the car for my sister (she was out with friends and had locked herself out of the car) late one mid-winter night. It was a frigid, but beautifully clear night, and on the way home, he pulled over and was showing me the constellations. I was freezing, but it was a wonderful father-daughter moment. There was Orion, who has been my favorite ever since.
This post warms my heart. Yes, it is 10 years since Hale-Bopp. I saw it at night for a few weeks, and then saw it at early dawn for a few days. Around the same time, about a year earlier perhaps, there was another comet named Hyakutake, in the night sky. It was a wispy dandelion of a comet, no more than cotton fluff and not as easily noticeable as Hale-Bopp.
Two nights ago, we had a clear sky in the Bay Area and I did, of course, see Orion. There is far too much memory associated with Rigel and Betelgeuse and the great nebula for me to pass by without noticing. I usually see Orion’s belt, and on a good day the Orion nebula, and then follow the belt (Southward?) to see Sirius, the Dog Star. Time was when, I could name almost all of the major constellations, my favorite being Scorpio. It is not my sun-sign, but I loved the tail, and was mighty pleased to discover star clusters near Antares with my binoculars.
This is awfully long. Perhaps, it warrants a post. Speaking of father-daughter moments, Emily, do you remember the lovely opening minutes of the film “Contact”?
Emily: strangely enough, to me it felt much more than ten years to me. It seems I have had three lives since then. and I was happy to discover that it was only ten years. About the father-child-sky moments, there is something I want to do with my kid: we have glowing star stickers and we had glued them randomly above the baby’s crib. Now that we moved, there are no more stars above his head. When his brand new room is ready, I will stick the stars back, but this time I will mimick the real constellations using the big and small stickers in accurate patterns.
polaris: I have never been able to name stars or constellations beyond Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, and Polaris (of course). I wish my dad had showed them to me. Unfortunately, we lived in a very busy city with a very hazy night sky 90% of the year.
I’ve actually seen Orion twice in the past month. The first time I was snow-camping with some friends, and after we finished building our fire we went to look at the sky. The next time I had just come home from a play with my family and after getting out of the car we went and looked at the sky for a few minutes and my mom showed my sister where Orion is.
There are places where you can buy special charts for painting the night sky on your ceiling. They come in a big sheet that you tape up there, the sheet is full of holes and then you daub the glow-in-the-dark paint on the holes. I have a completely random starry sky over my bed, I love it.
I look at Orion on a regular basis. In spite of the fact that I live in town, it is a small town and the light pollution is still not so bad that you cannot see the stars.
Oh, if we could all live in communities like Flagstaff AZ, which has light pollution control. There is nothing like the desert sky and the arctic sky if you want to see stars.
Mattathias: I’d love to go snow-camping — I’ve built quite a few igloos, some of which were even large enough to lie under, but never had the courage to actually sleep in them. I reckon a tent might be a better idea to start snow-camping.
healingmagichands, if I had had a random starry sky over my bed when I was a kid, I am sure I would have invented new constellations that belonged to me only, complete with a bestiary of star names, distances and physical data (beta kiwii, also known as matatea-tokoeka is a red supergiant orbiting a white dwarf, and the brightest star of the kiwi constellation — it was worshipped by maori tribes as the ‘eye of the kiwi’, and was supposed to give the power to see in the dark).
My childhood was filled with nights of stars so bright you could hold them in your hand. We were in Big Bend National Park in southern Texas during Hale-Bop and loved seeing it low against the horizon, a tiny flame in the crystal night.
Last night my husband and I lay in the hot tub of this lovely farm we are currently living on and saw our totally first clear sky in months. The sounds of the frogs surrounded us, with the occasional howl of the coyotes from the valley floor below us. I saw two huge shooting stars blaze across the top of the sky but my husband missed them. We lay there floating on our backs, waiting for just one more so he could see it. Finally, he groaned and said he was parboiled so we climbed out into the chill, steam rising from our super heated bodies.
Even without the third shooting star, moments like this are magical and will last in our minds and hearts, so when we read a post like yours, we are instantly transported back in time to the memory as if it was last night.
Thanks for the transportation!
“filled with stars so bright you could hold them in your hand”: I wish I’d written that. And I am jealous of your hot tub.
I have many memories of backpacking trips in the desert southwest of the US, particularly Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. There were also many nights spent above timberline in Colorado and Wyoming. The stars you see in environments like that are hard to describe, there are so many of them and they are so beautiful.
Your comment just reminded me of a very old memory of stars and American desert southwest: driving back to civilization with my parents from the Grand Canyon, we got caught by the night in the middle of nowhere. We drove on and reached the Barstow, CA, Motel 6 at 11 PM or something like that. We were exhausted. The warm swimming pool was a wonderful experience, with palm trees around us and bright stars overhead — probably my only swimming + stargazing experience (until I setup a pool in my garden this summer).
Orion is my favorite constellation. I think as a kid it was my favorite because it was so recognizable. Then when I was older, because there is something about looking at the starry sky when it is cold enough to see your breath. Now, I think it is because of symmetry & balance of the constellation. And because I recognize it, and see my breath, and …. what is there NOT to love about Orion?
You forgot the nebula, which (with a telescope) looks like your breath plume got stuck on the winter-night firmament.
I love Orion, but I also love the Pleides. I would have to say my favorite constellation is Ursa Major, mostly because he acts as a direction finder. After all, if you can find Ursa Major, you can find Polaris, and then you are oriented.
It was amazing when we travelled south of the equator, though. The Southern Cross is a most beautiful star cluster. Having grown up in the Northern Hemisphere and spent hours gazing at that sky, it was quite disorienting to suddenly be in the Southern Hemisphere, where all was new and different.
When I visited new Zealand, I did not take enough time to have a good look at the night sky. Considering how I was constantly puzzled by how the sun moved in the sky, I am certain the austral firmament would have seemed a random invention to me.
The comet McNaught from a month ago was fantastic. I don’t really remember Hale-Bopp, but McNaught was super. Plus I have photos of it
Saskboy: welcome among my few non-female readers