(no subject)
Nov. 28th, 2012 11:29 amLast night Toby and I were walking around the subdivision, and at the far end, where there's fewer lights at the moment because they're building a toll road nearby and fewer than half the lots have been sold, we stopped and stared at the sky for a while. We spotted Jupiter, and then across the sky, a bright star which I thought was a planet at first, possibly Mars. Toby got out his phone and activated the app that allows you to point it at the sky and tells you what stars you're looking at (and if you point it at the ground, it tells you what stars the people on the opposite side of the earth can see at that moment). We identified the star as probably Fomalhaut, and both remarked our amazement at how bright it was, and looked up how many light-years it was away from us, and gazed at it some more, and then, eventually, it slowly banked sideways and we realized we were watching a plane on its approach path.
And then we repeated the whole process for a slightly less bright star, which also turned out to be a plane. I have forgotten the name of the star we misidentified it as. Living under the approach path for a major airport has problems, especially in that planes head directly at us for a good long time so that for several minutes they appear to be stars. We eventually managed to tentatively positively ID Aldebaran, after it didn't bank left or right for quite a while.
Toby and I r gud at astronomy. My seven-year-old self, who idolized Carl Sagan and wanted more than anything to be an astronomer (when I wasn't wanting to be a ballerina) is crying in shame.
And then we repeated the whole process for a slightly less bright star, which also turned out to be a plane. I have forgotten the name of the star we misidentified it as. Living under the approach path for a major airport has problems, especially in that planes head directly at us for a good long time so that for several minutes they appear to be stars. We eventually managed to tentatively positively ID Aldebaran, after it didn't bank left or right for quite a while.
Toby and I r gud at astronomy. My seven-year-old self, who idolized Carl Sagan and wanted more than anything to be an astronomer (when I wasn't wanting to be a ballerina) is crying in shame.