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Have you *really* learnt the sky?


great_bear

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Have you really learnt the sky?

I thought I had - and that star-party skies confused me merely because there were "too many" stars in them. However, now I've moved house, I've realised that my "learning" the sky, merely consisted of subconsciously learning which neighbours' house each constellation rose over.

Now I'm in a new house, I'm all at sea again! :)

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Well, I have a lot to learn but am slowly getting there, when I went to France on holiday a couple of years ago the location was enough to confuse the basic knowledge of the night sky I had, the main reason, as you say, was too many stars on show! :)

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No I don't know the whole sky - I have almost no knowledge of the stuff south of declination 20 deg South - but otherwise I'm pretty happy that anything "out of place" which is easily visible will be spotted and can find my direction from a random patch of clear sky. I don't even "know" all the constellation "figures" but I do know more than enough to be able to find my way around even in sparse areas like Camelopardalis and Leo Minor. You can easily get away with a lot less than I know - and you will continue to learn, if you star hop rather than always relying on goto scopes to find objects for you. You'd probably be surprised how many professional astronomers can't find quite easy constellations like Perseus!

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Surely a Planisphere is a useful aid to learning the sky.

Of course I realise when you're lucky enough to reside, or visit a superb polution free site, you are confronted with so many diamond lights, even major constellations become difficult to recognise.:)

Ron.

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If I were to put a figure on how much of the sky I know, it would be less than 1%,

Just as I was starting to know the Orion constellation it went and fazed away to the west, Oh the joys, so much to learn!

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Have you really learnt the sky?

I thought I had - and that star-party skies confused me merely because there were "too many" stars in them. However, now I've moved house, I've realised that my "learning" the sky, merely consisted of subconsciously learning which neighbours' house each constellation rose over.

Now I'm in a new house, I'm all at sea again! :)

Lol! Absolutely! Had a few days away in Cornwall recently and

A: Was completely lost by having beautifully dark skies, took 10 minutes to find the Plough!

B: Like you couldn't orientate myself due to the lack of familiar landmarks.

Its all a steep learning curve eh? :eek:

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I know exactly what you mean. I know the brightest stars in the constellations, but at dark sites realise how few I know. Moving house recently has also meant taking some time to learn where everything falls into place - ie previously if it were mainly cloudy I would know which stars you can see in the gaps, but now I find orientation much harder.

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Surely a Planisphere is a useful aid to learning the sky

Well - I could probably even *draw* a rough Planisphere from memory to be honest. No, my real problem is mentally rotating and mapping that knowledge to the sky above when in unfamiliar territory :)

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I know some of the constellations that track through the view from my back garden, but I'm still getting over the Plough moving from the side of my neighbour's house, to just over my roof :)

Away from home I'm pretty much in the dark (see what I did there?) :eek::D:D

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I know the Summer and Winter stars quite well. Reflecting my parents', rather conservative, idea of holidaying - Ever with my grandparents in N.Wales. <G> But oddly prophetic, inasmuch that I now LIVE there myself... The skies are STILL quite good too. :)

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