Ad Astra Observatory

While sitting on a flight from Tokyo to Singapore, I experienced something that I’ve not had since those early days sitting on the patio at The Camden; I looked out the plane window at the stars, and I didn’t see any familiar patterns. My friends the stars were gone.

It was jarring and also exciting.

What follows is first my original observing report, as I was trying to take in all that I saw. Then I will go back and annotate the log with information as I have now gleaned it with the aid of Cartes du Ciel and the Internet.

I resolved to attempt to understand what I was looking at. It took me a moment to realize that, staring at a bright set of stars, I was looking directly at The Southern Cross. To its north, there are two more very bright stars along what I originally thought were terrestrial clouds, but then realized were astronomical. I wondered briefly if they were the Magellanic Clouds, and realized I should get my bearings.

I knelt on the floor, looked back over the rear of the plane, twisted my mind, and realized that I was staring at Scorpius as high in the sky as Orion, with the Teapot of Sagittarius rising below it.

What I hoped was the “large” MC turned out to be the Sagittarius Star Cloud, the steam coming from the spout that I know to contain M8 and M20.

M7 was prominent.

There is another large star cloud just south of Scorpius that I cannot see from CA. It stretches 2/3 of the way from Scorpius’ tail to the two bright pointer stars that I now realize are skirting the western edge of the Milky Way bulge.

There is nebulosity directly east of (below) the Cross, and the Milky Way continues in a bright knot further south (right) of the Cross.

The Cross, the pointers, and Scorpius all lie just west of (above) the band of the Milky Way. Sagittarius sits below (east of) it. Near the pointers is a large (size of The Cross) triangle of stars, the brightest is east of the Milky Way band, the other two are within it.

The Milky Way lies parallel to the horizon, clearly above the cloud line, but obviously mistakable for it.

In the clouds below, I can see lightning strikes ringing out about once a minute, the yellow flash is in contrast to the stark white and pale grey of the stars.

Other than a few tiny lights, The Pacific Ocean is dark here. The plane says we’re in the middle of the South China Sea, well past Manila, Ho Chi Minh City off to the north, a couple of hours out of Singapore.

I have ruined my night vision with the reading light so I can type.

I don’t have a star chart on this computer. Some astronomer I am.

There is another asterism just south of Scorpius, it looks like an arrow pointing at Scorpius’s tail. It is a string of 5 stars in pattern 1 1 2 1, the two are embedded in the Milky Way.

Nebulosity with some stars in it further south of The Cross. Kite shape larger than the cross, bright stars at the two long ends.

I am lost in the stars. I am just writing down what I can so I can consult star charts later and figure out what I am looking at.

The Milky Way is gorgeous. I need to get to dark sky more. And with a telescope.

Anyone even passingly familiar with the Southern sky is probably chuckling to themselves, as I now realize that I was looking at some famous chunks of sky.

I had indeed correctly identified The Southern Cross. It’s as prominent an asterism in the Southern sky as The Big Dipper is in the North. The two bright stars nearby are Alpha and Beta Centauri. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our own, with one of its components, Proxima Centauri, the closest star. Alpha Centauri is stunningly bright.

As I realized, the star clouds I was seeing were not the Magellanic Clouds (which turn out to be winter objects, not visible at this time of year). The large star cloud is the Sagittarius Star Cloud (as I determined once I was able to identify some familiar constellations). The smaller star cloud I saw just south of Scorpius is the Norma Star Cloud. It is cut off at its southern end by a large dust cloud, before it reaches Alpha and Beta Cen.

The nebulosity just east of The Cross is IC 2944, The Running Chicken Nebula (seriously). The bright knot even further south is The famous Eta Carinae Nebula. I now realize that I could also detect The Coalsack, a very dark dust cloud just north of The Cross.

The bright triangle of stars is the constellation Triangulum Australe. I think it’s interesting that my brain groups a lot of these stars into the same constellations that the ancient explorers did. I needed a way to describe what I was seeing to make sense of it, and apparently I saw what they were seeing, at least in this case.

The asterism south of Scorpius (the “arrow” pointing at its tail) turns out to be Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Arae and Eta Pavonis.

The other knot of nebulosity south of The Cross, anchoring a large “kite-shaped” asterism, is IC 2602. The kite is Theta Carinae (embedded in IC 2602), Omega, Beta, and Upsilon Carinae.

So I saw pieces of 6 different Southern Constellations, and was able to identify 4 major nebulae and one Star Cloud.

What a night. I resolve to bring a star chart next time.