Queen Hippolyta
http://www.jackstargazer.com/scripts0SG1034.html
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. Almost a thousand years ago the Persian poet Omar Khayyam in his book of poetry "The Rubaiyat" wrote his most famous line "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou beside me singing in the wilderness." But elsewhere in "The Rubaiyat" Omar made a poetic allusion to a mysterious "false dawn" as opposed to the real dawn, which can only be seen at a certain time of year. And this year the first two weeks of this September are your best chances to see it for 2010 because there will be no bright moonlight to overpower this delicate astronomical phenomenon. Let me tell you all about it and what you have to do to find it.
O.K. If we could go way out into space and look down on our solar system with super human vision we would notice a faint, almost imperceptible vast cloud extending outward from the Sun in the plane of the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and slightly beyond, an enormous cloud of cosmic dust. And while one would expect it would be impossible to see this super faint cloud from Earth, nevertheless in September when the plane of our Earth's orbit is almost vertical to the horizon, we can under the right conditions. And those conditions require that there is no moonlight out and that you must be far away from city lights because even the faintest moonlight or urban lighting will wipe out the extremely delicate, ethereal glow of the false dawn. As a general rule if you can see the Milky Way from where you're observing you'll have a good chance to see this it.
To find it look toward the east about 2 hours before sunrise, before the real dawn. It will look like a wedge or cone-shaped dim patch of light about the same brightness as the Milky Way. And it will extend from the horizon about one third to half way up to the zenitha ghostly, faintly glowing, rounded pyramid of light. Now the scientific name of this phenomenon is the zodiacal light and it's caused by sunlight scattering from all those trillions and trillions of dust particles which make up the great cosmic cloud.
And although Omar didn't mention it, this 'false dawn' also has an evening counterpart the 'false dusk', the evening zodiacal light, which looks pretty much the same except that it is visible 2 hours after sunset in the west in March when the plane of our Earth's orbit is also almost vertical to the horizon.
Additionally, if you ever see a similar oval shaped glow directly overhead at midnight you would be seeing the zodiacal light's sister phenomenon called the gegenschein or counterglow. And I wonder whether any poet ever wrote about that.
At any rate, remember that September is the month to see the 'false dawn' of Omar Khayyam, the morning zodiacal light, which I admit is very elusive. But once you've found it I think you'll know why it appeared in poetry centuries before it appeared in scientific writings. So get thee outside before dawn during the first two weeks of this month, be sure you're far from city lights and see if you are as inspired as an ancient poet. Keep looking up!
*************************************************************
You may take STAR GAZER off satellite for personal use, classroom use, astronomy club use, etc. without written permission.
I thought you fellow star gazers would love this!!! Since you are up two hours before dawn anyway and would love to see it!
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. Almost a thousand years ago the Persian poet Omar Khayyam in his book of poetry "The Rubaiyat" wrote his most famous line "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou beside me singing in the wilderness." But elsewhere in "The Rubaiyat" Omar made a poetic allusion to a mysterious "false dawn" as opposed to the real dawn, which can only be seen at a certain time of year. And this year the first two weeks of this September are your best chances to see it for 2010 because there will be no bright moonlight to overpower this delicate astronomical phenomenon. Let me tell you all about it and what you have to do to find it.
O.K. If we could go way out into space and look down on our solar system with super human vision we would notice a faint, almost imperceptible vast cloud extending outward from the Sun in the plane of the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and slightly beyond, an enormous cloud of cosmic dust. And while one would expect it would be impossible to see this super faint cloud from Earth, nevertheless in September when the plane of our Earth's orbit is almost vertical to the horizon, we can under the right conditions. And those conditions require that there is no moonlight out and that you must be far away from city lights because even the faintest moonlight or urban lighting will wipe out the extremely delicate, ethereal glow of the false dawn. As a general rule if you can see the Milky Way from where you're observing you'll have a good chance to see this it.
To find it look toward the east about 2 hours before sunrise, before the real dawn. It will look like a wedge or cone-shaped dim patch of light about the same brightness as the Milky Way. And it will extend from the horizon about one third to half way up to the zenitha ghostly, faintly glowing, rounded pyramid of light. Now the scientific name of this phenomenon is the zodiacal light and it's caused by sunlight scattering from all those trillions and trillions of dust particles which make up the great cosmic cloud.
And although Omar didn't mention it, this 'false dawn' also has an evening counterpart the 'false dusk', the evening zodiacal light, which looks pretty much the same except that it is visible 2 hours after sunset in the west in March when the plane of our Earth's orbit is also almost vertical to the horizon.
Additionally, if you ever see a similar oval shaped glow directly overhead at midnight you would be seeing the zodiacal light's sister phenomenon called the gegenschein or counterglow. And I wonder whether any poet ever wrote about that.
At any rate, remember that September is the month to see the 'false dawn' of Omar Khayyam, the morning zodiacal light, which I admit is very elusive. But once you've found it I think you'll know why it appeared in poetry centuries before it appeared in scientific writings. So get thee outside before dawn during the first two weeks of this month, be sure you're far from city lights and see if you are as inspired as an ancient poet. Keep looking up!
*************************************************************
You may take STAR GAZER off satellite for personal use, classroom use, astronomy club use, etc. without written permission.
I thought you fellow star gazers would love this!!! Since you are up two hours before dawn anyway and would love to see it!
