More than a few of us can identify with a lament from the famous essayist, Thomas Carlyle: “Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don’t half know to this day?”
In modern times I’ve often heard that baseball is the great American pastime. In ancient times I would guess that stargazing was the world’s great pastime. Perhaps I can use the approaching World Series to restore stargazing as a great pastime.
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When I first learned to locate and identify Pegasus, I followed the suggestion of looking for a Great Square of stars in the east at this time of year. I found that I had to tilt my head to one side or the other in order to see it as a square. Some years later I read an article by a person who saw Pegasus as the Great Baseball Diamond in the sky. After adopting his convention I no longer had to tilt my head and I found myself helping others to find other constellations, stars, galaxies by saying things like – off of third base or from first base or home plate, etc. After becoming more familiar with this part of the sky I was eventually able to visualize the upside down Great Winged Horse of Greek myth.
Pegasus was involved in one of the most famous rescues of a damsel in distress. Princess Andromeda, through no fault of her own, was chained to the rocks by the sea for Cetus, the Sea Monster, to devour. Andromeda’s mother, Queen Cassiopeia, had angered the gods by boasting about her beauty. You would think that Queen Cassiopeia would be the one to be sacrificed. Among the many tasks that Perseus, the Hero, had to perform was the slaying of the Medusa, a monster with snakes for hair. When Perseus cut off the Medusa’s head, a drop of her blood fell into the sea foam and from that the magical, white Winged Horse, Pegasus, sprang. Perseus spied Andromeda in her predicament while he was riding Pegasus, returning home with the head of the Medusa. Pegasus swooped down just in time and Perseus rescued Andromeda.
According to Greek myth the source of all poetic inspiration flows from the famous spring of Hippocrene, which Pegasus started with a single kick of a hoof. This explains why Pegasus is a favorite among poets.
After gazing at the multitude of stars and the glow of even more distant stars that make up the band of our Milky Way, we are struck by how few stars there are in the interior of Pegasus. Books and magazines contain sketches of what our Solar System and our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the outside. But I will never be able to get outside of our Solar System or Milky Way to see them from that perspective. I am interested in learning as much as I can about my orientation from just looking at the night sky from my backyard. A few moments of reflection and locating Cygnus, high overhead, flying on the band of our Milky Way toward the southwest, explains why there are few stars in Pegasus. When we look at Cygnus, the Swan, and follow it toward the southwest we are looking directly into the main disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. This is the path of the most stars that we are going to see with our naked eye. Now, when we turn and look at Pegasus we realize that we are looking away from the main disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. By convention or tradition, when we look in this direction it is said we are looking out of the bottom of our Milky Way Galaxy. When we realize this, then it comes as no surprise that there are fewer naked eye stars and no faint cloud of light in Pegasus. There’s something very satisfying in being able to look at our night sky and from that know our orientation within our Milky Way Galaxy. It’s all part of knowing where we are, where we have been, and where we are going.
Next week all eyes will be on our Moon as NASA’s LCROSS probe will crash into the South Pole of our Moon. Who will see it? What will it tell us? This is an exciting time! Clear skies.
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