The Night Sky in the Western Cape

The Tuesday night show is unadvertised

Vince was clued into a little secret which he shared with me while I was in Cape Town with him last week.

On Tuesday nights, after the regular Planetarium show, the astronomer at the Iziko South African Museum's Planetarium gives an unadvertised talk about "The Sky Tonight". He takes you through all the constellations, stars and planets visible in the current evening sky and tells you something about the history of the star and constellation names and the people who named them.

After the talk, he gives you a map of the night sky for the month of his talk and then sends you out amongst the stars to look up and find them for yourself. (We could have used it during our trip through the Karoo. So many stars!)




For instance, last Tuesday he pointed out the two stars which "point" to the top of the Southern Cross in the southern horizon. They are Alpha and Beta Centauri. Alpha Centauri, furthest from the Cross, is the star closest to our Solar System at a distance of 4.37 light years away (approximately 40 million million kilometers.)

He also pointed out three constellations above the southwestern horizon, the Sails (Vela), the Keel (Carina) and the Rear Deck (Puppis) of the Argo, the mythological ship of Jason.

Argo Navis

I must remind Vince to pick up an August sky map before our trip up the west coast of South Africa into the desert of Namibia. I'll bet the sky is incredible there too!