Did you know, the “star” off to the left (and above) is Saturn? And the star on the right is Regulus. The one above, at the vertex of the acute angle, is Algieba. No, I didn’t know any of those things until I looked it all up on Starry Night, although I was pretty sure one of the three was a planet.
This sight will have to keep us for a few years.
Comment by jennifer — February 20, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
Terrific sequence, Michael! Who’da thought Acton would have clearer skies than Boulder? Thanks for the info on Saturn, Regulus & Algieba, Jennifer. (Algieba?)
Rakkity, can you help? I thought I’d look up the pronounciation of what Starry Night called “Algieba”, but it’s not showing up on the star pronounciation lists. So did Starry Night makes a mistake?
Jennifer–I’ve found two different pronunciations on the web, al-gee’ba (hard g, long e) and al-je’ba (soft g,long e). The second one seems more definitive, since it’s taken from the Proceedings of the
Astronomical Journal of the Pacific (1936): http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1936PASP…48..139R
Since the name comes from the Arabic word for Brow of the Lion (Al-Jabbar), one might guess that the soft “g” is right.
(You’ll have to copy and paste the link into the URL box, since I can’t seem to make it work in an tag.)
Did you know, the “star” off to the left (and above) is Saturn? And the star on the right is Regulus. The one above, at the vertex of the acute angle, is Algieba. No, I didn’t know any of those things until I looked it all up on Starry Night, although I was pretty sure one of the three was a planet.
This sight will have to keep us for a few years.
Comment by jennifer — February 20, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
Terrific sequence, Michael! Who’da thought Acton would have clearer skies than Boulder? Thanks for the info on Saturn, Regulus & Algieba, Jennifer. (Algieba?)
Comment by rakkity — February 21, 2008 @ 1:00 am
Rakkity, can you help? I thought I’d look up the pronounciation of what Starry Night called “Algieba”, but it’s not showing up on the star pronounciation lists. So did Starry Night makes a mistake?
Comment by jennifer — February 21, 2008 @ 7:09 am
Oh, so wonderful. I enjoyed every moment of it, until the adult in me made the kid in me go to sleep. Thank you for the wonderful pictures.
Comment by Jen — February 21, 2008 @ 8:24 am
Jennifer–I’ve found two different pronunciations on the web, al-gee’ba (hard g, long e) and al-je’ba (soft g,long e). The second one seems more definitive, since it’s taken from the Proceedings of the
Astronomical Journal of the Pacific (1936):
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1936PASP…48..139R
Since the name comes from the Arabic word for Brow of the Lion (Al-Jabbar), one might guess that the soft “g” is right.
(You’ll have to copy and paste the link into the URL box, since I can’t seem to make it work in an tag.)
Comment by rakkity — February 21, 2008 @ 6:08 pm