Spring is just around the corner, and with it, comes the promise of warmer evenings and clearer skies. And hopefully the opportunity to spend more time looking up!

All 12 constellations of the zodiac are well known. But thanks to a popular '60s song, the most famous is Aquarius, the water-bearer. You can find it high in the eastern sky. Try looking for the stars of Aquarius on a dark night, as moonlight will overpower many of the constellation's fainter stars, but the brightest ones will still shine through.
Almost all major ancient civilizations saw Aquarius as a man or boy carrying a bucket of water. People have always placed special significance on Aquarius and the other constellations of the zodiac because they lie along the ecliptic; the path that the Sun follows through our sky.

In fact, that's what "the age of Aquarius" is all about. About 600 years from now, the Sun will appear in Aquarius at the time of the March equinox. But that's about the only significance for Aquarius and the other zodiacal constellations; they're good guideposts to help mark the seasons. They have no special influence over our daily lives.

And it’s here in Aquarius, that you’ll find the ringed planet Saturn. The impressive rings are almost edge-on to our view, inclined at only 4o, so minimal detail is visible. It will be March 2025 when the rings pass through the plane of the earth’s orbit and will be edge-on. It will be late 2026 before we begin to see the rings in all their glory. Hang tight!

Look up in the early evening, and you'll be greeted by the heart of our Milky Way galaxy almost directly overhead. You'll see the unmistakable form of Scorpius, the Scorpion, and the group of stars that make up the constellation of Sagittarius, the Archer. Look carefully in this area of the sky and you'll notice the misty glow of the countless millions of stars that are too far away for us to see clearly. Their light has journeyed for more than thirty thousand years to reach us.

As you scan the Milky Way, you’ll notice vast rifts that don’t seem to contain any stars. These rifts are actually enormous clouds of gas and dust that hide the Milky Way’s stars behind them. It’s not that there are no stars, they are just hidden from our view. The giant clouds of gas and dust will one day condense and form new stars.

Look low to the north. A beautiful blue-white star awaits. Vega is one of the closest and brightest stars in the night sky. It was one of the first stars whose distance was measured. The measurement has been refined since the 1800’s, and today astronomers know the distance quite precisely: a bit more than 25 light-years. That means the light we see from Vega actually left the star a bit more than 25 years ago.

Look to the right of Vega and locate the stars that make up the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. This star grouping has been identified with some sort of bird by most civilizations of the ancient world. Sometimes known as an eagle, a hen or a pigeon; the image of a graceful swan in full flight is the one I prefer. The star Deneb represents the tail of the swan, whilst Alberio is the beak.

In real life, Deneb is a star of enormous proportions. It is over 60,000 more luminous than our Sun, and 25 times more massive. If we placed our Sun at the same distance that Deneb is from us (1600 light years), then the Sun would be an insignificant little star barely visible in large amateur telescopes.
Alberio is a beautiful double star of blue and gold. A steadily held pair of powerful binoculars should show it as two distinct stars.

Higher in the sky we find Aquila, the Eagle. The brightest star in this constellation is Altair. At a distance from us of only 16 light years, it definitely classifies as a close stellar neighbour. But a bit of a strange character! It is about twice the diameter of our Sun, but spins on its axis in 6 and a half hours (our Sun takes 25 days). As a matter of fact, the spin is so rapid, that the star probably resembles a flattened tomato!
You might expect our closest neighbouring star to be one of the brightest lights in the night sky. Instead, though, it’s so faint that it wasn’t discovered until a century ago, in September 1915. Now known as Proxima Centauri, it’s just four-and-a-quarter light-years away.

If all the stars were as bright as the Sun, nearby stars would be easy to find, because they’d shine the brightest. But most stars are red dwarfs, which are so faint that not a single one is visible to the unaided eye.

Proxima Centauri was discovered by Robert Innes. He was born in Scotland but journeyed to South Africa to observe the southern sky. He made his great find by examining photographic plates taken on two different nights; one in 1910 and the other in 1915. Innes alternated the view from one plate to the other. In this way, he spotted a dim star that shifted position during the five-year interval, a sign the star was close by.
The new star was quite close to Alpha Centauri, which was the closest-known star system. What’s more, the new star seemed to be moving in the same direction as Alpha Centauri, which suggested they might be related. Sure enough, when astronomers measured it, they found it was nearly the same distance as Alpha Centauri.

It turns out that the star is actually a member of the Alpha Centauri system. But it’s a bit closer to us than the system’s other two stars, hence its name: Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.

The Moon is New on September 3rd, at First Quarter on the 11th, Full on the 18th and at Last Quarter on September 25th.

Happy stargazing!!