Latest / Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder / How to Begin (or Begin Again) With the Night Sky

Transcript

How to Begin (or Begin Again) With the Night Sky · Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

• 0:07
  Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to the first Star
• 0:10
  Trails episode of 2026. If you're new here, my
• 0:15
  name is Drew, and I'll be your guide to the night
• 0:18
  sky, a place you can return to again and again,
• 0:22
  all year long. And if you've been listening for
• 0:25
  a while, welcome back. This episode is for you
• 0:28
  too. Every January, I like to do something a
• 0:32
  little different. Instead of jumping straight
• 0:35
  into a checklist of objects and events, we slow
• 0:38
  things down, we zoom out, we reset. Maybe you
• 0:43
  received a telescope for Christmas. Or maybe
• 0:46
  you happened to look up one evening and wonder,
• 0:48
  what is that thing? Either way, the beginning
• 0:51
  of the year is when a lot of people first feel
• 0:54
  the pull to look up. And it's also when a lot
• 0:57
  of people quietly convince themselves they don't
• 1:01
  know enough to do that properly. Tonight is about
• 1:05
  undoing that idea. Astronomy can sometimes have
• 1:10
  a reputation problem. Somewhere along the way,
• 1:13
  it became associated with expensive gear, intimidating
• 1:17
  knowledge, and the sense that everyone else already
• 1:20
  knows what they're doing. But at its core, astronomy
• 1:25
  is much simpler than that. Astronomy is standing
• 1:29
  still for a moment and noticing that something
• 1:32
  vast is happening above you, whether or not you
• 1:35
  understand all of it yet. You don't need permission
• 1:39
  to look at the sky, you don't need credentials,
• 1:43
  and you don't even need a telescope, you just
• 1:46
  need attention. The sky has been here for your
• 1:51
  entire life It will be here for the rest of it
• 1:54
  and it doesn't care if you miss a night or a
• 1:57
  month or even a year This show exists because
• 2:02
  astronomy isn't a race. It's a relationship and
• 2:06
  January is a very good time to begin one To start
• 2:12
  let's take a look at one of the most useful ideas
• 2:15
  in astronomy which happens to also be one of
• 2:19
  the simplest. The sky is a clock, a slow, reliable
• 2:24
  one that tells time in hours, seasons, and years.
• 2:29
  If you step outside on a clear January evening,
• 2:32
  the sky isn't random, it's organized. Keep this
• 2:37
  basic idea in mind. Stars rise in the east, they
• 2:41
  drift across the sky, and they set in the west.
• 2:45
  just like the moon and the sun. That motion isn't
• 2:49
  the stars moving around us, it's the earth turning
• 2:52
  beneath them. Over the course of a single night,
• 2:56
  the sky marks the passage of hours. Over the
• 2:59
  course of months, it marks the passage of seasons.
• 3:04
  That's why winter skies look so different from
• 3:07
  summer skies. Familiar constellations vanish,
• 3:11
  and new ones take their place. Also, January
• 3:15
  is a great time to learn about astronomy because
• 3:18
  the sky gets dark early, stays dark longer, and
• 3:22
  it doesn't rush you. You don't have to stay up
• 3:25
  late to learn it. It's kind of like the universe
• 3:29
  meets you halfway. Let's talk about naked eye
• 3:33
  astronomy, not as a beginner phase, not as something
• 3:37
  you graduate from, but as the foundation of everything
• 3:41
  else. Your eyes are extraordinary instruments
• 3:45
  once you give them time. When you step outside,
• 3:49
  your eyes need about 20 minutes to fully adapt
• 3:52
  to darkness. Bright lights reset that clock instantly.
• 3:58
  So your phone is not your friend here. Once your
• 4:01
  eyes settle in, the sky begins to open up. Stars
• 4:05
  multiply and patterns emerge. You'll first notice
• 4:10
  that some stars twinkle and others don't. That's
• 4:14
  not a trick of your vision, it's physics. Stars
• 4:17
  twinkle because they're incredibly far away,
• 4:21
  pinpoints of light distorted by Earth's atmosphere.
• 4:25
  Planets don't twinkle as much because they're
• 4:28
  closer and they appear as tiny disks instead
• 4:31
  of points. That single observation, twinkling
• 4:35
  versus steady, lets you identify planets without
• 4:39
  charts, apps, or even guesswork. As you get more
• 4:43
  familiar with the sky, you'll instinctively recognize
• 4:46
  the visible planets by their brightness and even
• 4:49
  color. Binoculars, by the way, are not a compromise.
• 4:54
  They're one of the most powerful tools in astronomy.
• 4:57
  They're portable, intuitive, and perfectly matched
• 5:01
  to how humans naturally look at the sky. Right
• 5:05
  now, I consider myself a binocular astronomer.
• 5:09
  I don't even own a telescope at the moment, and
• 5:12
  I consider that a feature, not a bug. If all
• 5:16
  you ever use are your eyes and a pair of binoculars,
• 5:19
  you're doing real astronomy. And binoculars have
• 5:23
  advantages over scopes. You can just aim them
• 5:26
  up and scan around without messing with a tripod,
• 5:30
  a finder scope, eyepiece magnifications, or polar
• 5:33
  alignments. Just grab a seat in a lounge chair
• 5:37
  and sweep across the sky. The sensation is that
• 5:41
  of flying through the stars. If you have a steady
• 5:44
  hand, you can make out the moons of Jupiter in
• 5:47
  a nice pair of binoculars. Star clusters are
• 5:51
  a real pleasure and from a dark site you'll be
• 5:53
  able to see the bright core of the Andromeda
• 5:56
  galaxy, its photons reaching our eyes after more
• 6:00
  than two and a half million years in transit.
• 6:04
  Then there are the stories of the sky, constellations.
• 6:08
  They're how humans imposed meaning on randomness
• 6:12
  long before we understood stars as suns and galaxies
• 6:16
  as islands of light. Different cultures drew
• 6:20
  different shapes in the same sky, echoing their
• 6:23
  history and myths. Modern star charts sometimes
• 6:27
  make constellations feel like tests. Connect
• 6:30
  the dots correctly, or you've failed. And that's
• 6:34
  the wrong mindset. Constellations are anchors
• 6:38
  that give you a roadmap across the sky. There's
• 6:41
  no right or wrong way to view them. In January,
• 6:45
  there's no better anchor than Orion, the legendary
• 6:48
  hunter. You're probably familiar with the three
• 6:51
  bright stars in a row that form his distinct
• 6:54
  belt. You don't need to memorize his mythology.
• 6:58
  You don't need to trace every star. You just
• 7:01
  need to recognize him as a landmark. Once you
• 7:05
  find Orion, the rest of the winter sky starts
• 7:08
  to make sense. The sky stops being a wall of
• 7:11
  lights and starts becoming a landscape. That's
• 7:16
  the moment astronomy becomes personal. We'll
• 7:19
  talk more about Orion and his secrets in a moment.
• 7:23
  Now, most of us live under light -polluted skies.
• 7:27
  That's simply a fact of modern life. Light pollution
• 7:31
  limits what you can see, but it doesn't erase
• 7:34
  the sky, and it's not a reason not to look up.
• 7:37
  There's a lot of astronomy that can be enjoyed
• 7:40
  under a compromised sky. The moon still commands
• 7:44
  attention. Planets still shine steadily. Bright
• 7:48
  stars still punch through the glow. You'll see
• 7:52
  the larger, brighter constellations like Orion
• 7:55
  and the Big Dipper. Urban astronomy is still
• 7:59
  astronomy, and if you wait for perfect darkness,
• 8:02
  you may never begin. If you learn the sky where
• 8:06
  you are, Every improvement feels like a gift.
• 8:09
  When you finally venture out to a dark site,
• 8:12
  you'll be even more in awe of what's up there.
• 8:16
  So, speaking of what's overhead, let's see what
• 8:19
  awaits us in this first full week of the new
• 8:22
  year. Right now the moon is near full. It peaked
• 8:26
  as the January full moon, the Wolf Moon, around
• 8:30
  January the 3rd, meaning it's still bright and
• 8:34
  dominant in the early evening sky. That brightness
• 8:37
  will wash out fainter stars, but it's also a
• 8:41
  striking sight all on its own, rising just after
• 8:44
  sunset and moving westward through the night.
• 8:48
  One of the easiest objects for new stargazers
• 8:51
  this week is Jupiter. It's the brightest planet
• 8:54
  visible right now, rising soon after dusk and
• 8:58
  shining persistently through the night. Jupiter
• 9:01
  is approaching opposition on January the 10th,
• 9:04
  which means Earth is between it and the Sun,
• 9:08
  so it's up in the sky all night, climbing high
• 9:11
  and at its peak brightness for the year. When
• 9:14
  you see a bright, non -twinkling star high in
• 9:17
  the southeast to south, that's Jupiter. If you
• 9:21
  do have a telescope, even a modest one, Jupiter
• 9:24
  is a great first planet to explore, but keep
• 9:28
  your expectations reasonable. It won't look like
• 9:31
  a Voyager image. You should be able to discern
• 9:34
  a tiny disk, maybe with several cloud bands.
• 9:38
  Its Galilean moons will be on either side of
• 9:41
  it, resembling a tiny solar system all by itself.
• 9:45
  You aren't likely to see a lot of color, if any.
• 9:50
  As with any telescopic observation, patience
• 9:52
  is key. As a beginner, lining up a scope on a
• 9:56
  planet for the first time is difficult and can
• 9:59
  feel like an hour of frustration, punctuated
• 10:03
  by two minutes of wonder. I've always found it
• 10:06
  helpful to use a low magnification eyepiece that
• 10:09
  gives you a wider field of view, then step up
• 10:12
  to a more powerful magnification once you have
• 10:15
  your object in the frame. Not far from Jupiter,
• 10:19
  in the same part of the sky, you'll also find
• 10:21
  the familiar twin stars Castor, and Pollux of
• 10:25
  the constellation Gemini. Pollux sits a little
• 10:29
  closer to Jupiter in the sky, and together they
• 10:32
  form a neat visual triangle you can pick out
• 10:35
  on a clear night. If you face south -southeast
• 10:39
  after sunset, you'll see the familiar Winter
• 10:42
  Hexagon, an asterism made of very bright stars.
• 10:47
  It includes Sirius, the brightest star in the
• 10:50
  night sky. Betelgeuse in Orion, Aldebaran in
• 10:55
  Taurus, and Procyon near the horizon. These bright
• 10:59
  stars help your eye navigate without charts,
• 11:02
  and from their arrangement you can start to recognize
• 11:05
  the larger patterns of the winter sky. Speaking
• 11:09
  of Orion, he's unmistakable right now. Look for
• 11:13
  his three -star belt slanted across the late
• 11:16
  winter sky. Just below and slightly to the left
• 11:20
  of Orion's belt is Sirius, blazing brighter than
• 11:23
  anything else overhead. If you're a brand new
• 11:26
  observer, here's something special to look out
• 11:29
  for once you've located Orion. Hanging just below
• 11:32
  Orion's belt, where his sword would be, you'll
• 11:36
  find one of the most famous objects in the night
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  sky, the Great Nebula in Orion. On a dark night,
• 11:43
  with good eyesight, you may be able to see it
• 11:46
  with the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy patch, something
• 11:49
  that looks a little out of place among the pinpoints
• 11:52
  of stars. But if you have binoculars, this is
• 11:56
  where things get interesting. Through binoculars,
• 11:59
  the Great Nebula blooms into view as a glowing
• 12:02
  cloud, soft, uneven, and unmistakably not a star.
• 12:07
  You're looking at a vast, stellar nursery. a
• 12:10
  region where new stars are actively forming more
• 12:13
  than a thousand light years away. This is often
• 12:17
  the first deep sky object people ever see, and
• 12:21
  for good reason. It's bright, it's easy to find,
• 12:24
  and it doesn't require expensive equipment. The
• 12:27
  first time you spot it, there's a quiet realization
• 12:30
  that tends to follow. That fuzzy glow isn't a
• 12:34
  smudge on the lens. It's not an illusion. It's
• 12:37
  a real place in the universe. If astronomy ever
• 12:40
  stops feeling abstract, it's usually right here,
• 12:44
  standing under Orion looking at a cloud of gas
• 12:47
  and dust where stars are being born, with nothing
• 12:51
  more than your eyes or even a simple pair of
• 12:53
  binoculars. Another event happening this week
• 12:57
  is the tail end of the Quandran -Tid meteor shower.
• 13:01
  Its peak was just before January the 4th, and
• 13:04
  unfortunately the bright moon will drown out
• 13:07
  many of the faint meteors this year. But if you're
• 13:11
  in a very dark location with good eyes and patience,
• 13:14
  you might still glimpse a few shooting stars
• 13:16
  distributed around the sky. It just takes some
• 13:19
  patience. So here's a suggestion for 2026, and
• 13:24
  it's not a resolution, but just something to
• 13:27
  practice. Once a week, take some time to look
• 13:30
  up from the same place at the same time. Look
• 13:34
  for one thing, maybe a star, a planet, the moon,
• 13:38
  or a familiar constellation. Notice how they
• 13:41
  shift night to night. Over time, something subtle
• 13:46
  happens. The sky starts to feel familiar. You
• 13:49
  stop asking, what am I supposed to see? And start
• 13:52
  noticing what's already there. In the weeks ahead,
• 13:56
  we'll return to our usual show rhythm, specific
• 14:00
  objects, events, and so on. But everything we
• 14:03
  do this year grows out of what we talked about
• 14:05
  tonight. Astronomy is not a performance and it's
• 14:09
  not a race. The sky will be there tomorrow. The
• 14:13
  sky is patient and it'll wait for you. Before
• 14:18
  we leave this topic, I wanted to mention some
• 14:20
  resources over at our website, StarTrails .Show,
• 14:25
  in case you've never visited it. I've recently
• 14:28
  added some features that you may find useful.
• 14:32
  New and even returning listeners may enjoy the
• 14:34
  new Start Here page, where I've flagged some
• 14:37
  of my favorite must -listen episodes, along with
• 14:41
  tons of links and resources you might find helpful.
• 14:44
  I've included links to some of my favorite Night
• 14:47
  Sky apps, useful websites, and more. And if you're
• 14:51
  just starting out, I think you'll enjoy the Stellarium
• 14:54
  app. It's basically a planetarium in your pocket,
• 14:58
  and their web application is very useful as well.
• 15:03
  Also, if you like to listen to music while you
• 15:05
  stargaze, check out my new music project Liminal
• 15:09
  Horizon. It's spacey ambient music designed for
• 15:13
  dark skies, and you've probably already heard
• 15:16
  some of it in recent shows. Click the music link
• 15:20
  in the site navigation up top to access it. After
• 15:27
  a quick break, I'll mention a book I think you'll
• 15:30
  all enjoy and will journey back in time to 1860
• 15:34
  for the discovery of a planet that didn't actually
• 15:38
  exist. Vulcan. Stay with us. Welcome back. Many
• 15:55
  many episodes ago. I floated the idea of a sort
• 15:59
  of Star Trails book club and I selected the book
• 16:03
  Nightwatch by Terrence Dickinson for the discussion
• 16:07
  Then about six months elapsed and I finally ordered
• 16:11
  the book Then the book sat on my shelf for another
• 16:15
  six months. I nearly forgot about it Well over
• 16:18
  the holiday break. I finally started reading
• 16:21
  it I'll have a lot more to say about it in an
• 16:23
  upcoming episode, but the big takeaway here is
• 16:26
  you owe it to yourself to read this book if you're
• 16:29
  interested in stargazing, and it makes a fine
• 16:33
  companion to this podcast. In fact, if this podcast
• 16:37
  were a class, I think I'd want Nightwatch to
• 16:39
  be its textbook. And here's why. The author,
• 16:43
  Dickinson, has crafted this book especially for
• 16:46
  backyard stargazers. There's really no jargon
• 16:49
  in the book. There's no math or complex explanations.
• 16:53
  It's richly illustrated, and thumbing through
• 16:56
  it reminded me of the old National Geographic
• 16:59
  hardbound tome Our Universe, which kept me in
• 17:03
  endless awe as a kid in the early 1980s. Now,
• 17:07
  I've done more than 90 episodes of this podcast.
• 17:11
  I'm certainly no expert astronomer, but I like
• 17:13
  to think I'm somewhat informed of the subject
• 17:16
  matter. Still, every time I pick up Nightwatch,
• 17:20
  I learn something new, even in a book aimed at
• 17:23
  beginners. Here's an example. I didn't know that
• 17:27
  our sun is larger than about 90 % of the other
• 17:30
  stars in the galaxy. Yet nearly every star we
• 17:34
  see at night here on Earth with our naked eye
• 17:36
  is much larger than our sun. Because space is
• 17:41
  an infinitely large place, only the largest stars,
• 17:45
  the Leviathans of the Milky Way, are the ones
• 17:48
  we can actually see. And every chapter contains
• 17:51
  revelations like this. In an age where reading
• 17:55
  a physical book seems like something from a bygone
• 17:59
  era and night sky maps are available as augmented
• 18:02
  reality in a phone app, you might be wondering,
• 18:06
  why bother? but the book is really that good.
• 18:10
  I'm feverishly assembling notes from my reading
• 18:12
  and a full review is coming soon, but get a copy
• 18:16
  if you can. I think you'll really find it helpful.
• 18:26
  Before I go, I'd like to point out a moment in
• 18:29
  astronomy that occurred around this time, 166
• 18:32
  years ago, back in 1860. On January the 2nd of
• 18:41
  that year, a respected astronomer made an announcement
• 18:43
  that seemed, at the time, entirely reasonable.
• 18:48
  The astronomer was Urbain Le Verrier, the same
• 18:51
  man who successfully predicted the existence
• 18:54
  of Neptune purely through mathematics. When Neptune
• 18:58
  was later observed, almost exactly where Le Verrier
• 19:02
  said it would be, his reputation soared. He had
• 19:05
  found a planet without ever seeing it. We actually
• 19:09
  discussed this way back in episode 38, in a segment
• 19:13
  on orbital resonances. So, when Le Verrier claimed
• 19:17
  there was another planet, this one orbiting closer
• 19:20
  to the Sun than Mercury, people listened. He
• 19:24
  called it Vulcan. Astronomers had noticed something
• 19:30
  strange about Mercury's orbit. Over time, the
• 19:34
  point where Mercury comes closest to the Sun,
• 19:37
  its perihelion slowly shifts. That gradual rotation
• 19:42
  of the orbit is called precession. Most of Mercury's
• 19:46
  precession could be explained by the gravitational
• 19:48
  pull of the other planets, but a small portion,
• 19:52
  about 43 arc seconds per century, remained unaccounted
• 19:56
  for. Using Newtonian physics, the simplest explanation
• 20:01
  was another unseen planet tugging on Mercury.
• 20:06
  Just as Neptune explained Uranus' odd motion,
• 20:10
  Vulcan would explain Mercury's. And for decades,
• 20:14
  astronomers searched. Some observers reported
• 20:18
  fleeting sightings of Vulcan during solar eclipses.
• 20:22
  Others claimed to see tiny dark dots crossing
• 20:25
  the face of the Sun. Vulcan lived in that uncomfortable
• 20:29
  space between plausible and real. Never fully
• 20:33
  confirmed, but never fully dismissed. Remember,
• 20:37
  the area close to the sun is notoriously difficult
• 20:40
  to observe, owing to the sun's glare and the
• 20:43
  compact orbit of objects there. That's why we
• 20:47
  rarely catch Mercury in the sky, and when we
• 20:49
  do, it's near the setting sun, low on the horizon.
• 20:54
  The breakthrough came in 1915 when Albert Einstein
• 20:58
  published his theory of general relativity. Einstein
• 21:03
  showed that gravity isn't just a force between
• 21:05
  objects, it's the warping of space and time itself.
• 21:10
  Near something as massive as the Sun, space -time
• 21:13
  curves enough to subtly alter Mercury's orbit.
• 21:17
  When Einstein ran the numbers, general relativity
• 21:21
  predicted exactly the missing amount of Mercury's
• 21:24
  perihelion precession. No extra planet required.
• 21:29
  Vulcan didn't disappear because astronomers stopped
• 21:32
  looking hard enough. It vanished because the
• 21:35
  universe turned out to be stranger and more elegant
• 21:38
  than anyone had imagined. Today, Vulcan survives
• 21:43
  only in fiction, most famously as the homeworld
• 21:46
  of Spock in Star Trek. But for a brief moment
• 21:50
  in history it was a serious answer to a real
• 21:52
  problem. That's going to do it for this week.
• 22:08
  If you found this episode interesting please
• 22:10
  share it with a friend who might enjoy it. The
• 22:13
  easiest way to do that is by sending folks to
• 22:15
  our website Star Trails dot show and if you want
• 22:20
  to support the show use the link on the site
• 22:22
  to buy me a coffee it really helps Be sure to
• 22:26
  follow Star Trails on blue sky and YouTube links
• 22:30
  are in the show notes Until we meet again beneath
• 22:33
  the stars clear skies everyone