To analyse the stars, you have to be able to Do we all see the same thing?

There’s a saucepan in
see the stars…
the sky?!
The sky which sits above us at night is
Our ability to see the stars are a product of the sky’s determined by our latitude, that is, our The constellation of Orion is a
atmospheric conditions. When temperatures, air positioning in regards to the equator. Since collection of stars that you may
currents, weather front and dust particles we sit on similar latitudes to Tokyo, we can have previously referred to as the
continuously change, the ‘seeing’ conditions change see the same parts of the sky. People saucepan or ‘The Big Dipper’. As
with it. If stars are ‘twinkling’, the seeing conditions positioned on the same longitude, by depicted above (upside down in
are considered poor because the images appear contrast, see witness very different scenes our view), the constellation of
unsteady. Many star watchers have adopted the above when they look up. Orion consists of:
Antoniado Scale in order to measure the quality of (Hobbs, 2017) • Alkaid, Mizar and Alioth as the
the conditions. The scale ranges from I, indicating
saucepans handle
perfect seeing and no twinkling, to V, with extremely
Please turn over
poor conditions and many tremors.
(Hobbs, 2017) Astronomy for more!
• Megrez, Phecda, Dubhe and
Merak as the bowl
• The brightest star is Alioth, a
part of the handle
Hang on…the Southern Cross has rotated! • The saucepan is best viewed in
April but due to its positioning
In case you hadn’t heard, the earth is round and yes, it spins. As humans in the sky, can be seen in
on earth we spin from the west to the east, explain why the stars, the Australia at almost all times
sun and the moon all rise in the east and set in the west. Considering the during the year as it rarely
world is not flat, not all stars in our view will rise and set and there are drops below the horizon.
some stars that we can only see at certain times during the year. (Constellation Guide, 2018)
• The Southern Cross is an important part of Australia’s Dreamtime
history because it is a set of stars that have always been in view in
Australia.
• The Southern Cross points to the South Pole and therefore is an
important tool for navigation.
• In April, when the Southern Cross first comes into view it is lying on its
side, but by midnight it is standing upright.
(Constellation Guide, 2018)

Which star-sign are you?
The zodiac constellations are a popular part of astronomy. We
each have one of twelve zodiac signs showcased above,
according to when we are born during the year. It is commonly
thought that our zodiac signs are largely relevant to our character
traits and fate. Many fortune tellers will use our star-signs to
predict the future. The zodiac signs sit in the ecliptic or the
celestial sphere, meaning you can see them in any place that you
can see the sun set and rise on earth
(Crockett, 2016)
Star-sign or sun-sign?
Astronomy Because the world rotates and the zodiac
constellations span across the entire sky, we
never see all constellations at one time. At the
most, we will be able to see four constellations
at once, and up to ten if we stayed up all night
long as the earth spins. The few that aren’t
visible are blocked by the sun. A tricky part
about spotting zodiac signs is that ancient
astrologers assigned each zodiac sign ‘to the
time of year when the sun blocks that
constellation from our view. So your ‘star sign’ is
actually your ‘sun sign’’ (Hobbs, 2017). This
means that if you are an Aquarius, then between
Jan 20 and Feb 18, your constellation cannot be
seen due to the sun.
What about the planets?
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Vanus and Mercury
all sit in a line that mark the ecliptic path
and since January, have started to
become visible. For the last ten years
Jupiter and Saturn have been on the
wrong side of the sun for our view, but
lucky for us, in the next five years the
planets and earth will ‘briefly converge
on the same side of the sun’ (Hill, 2016)
so that we can steal a brief glance.