|
Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances
of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when
the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances
depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall
cease from being a nation before me for ever. - Jeremiah 31:35-36
IN THIS UPDATE:
Announcements
Astronomy Campouts - 2014
CHEO Convention -- June 20-21
Dance of the Planets
Earlybird Special! Morning Planets - Venus, Saturn and Mars
Astronomy Topics
The Design of the Sky - Orion's Belt
Dear Friends,
Hope everyone has been enjoying this glorious winter as much as we have! The winter of 2014 has been the coldest winter in Northeast Ohio in a long time, with the most number of sub-zero days in 30 years. We've had snow on the ground continuously since Christmas, something that our adult children have heard about but never experienced personally. The media has called this winter "brutal," and many folks down south have struggled with winter difficulties. But there are others like us, who enjoy watching the beautiful snow, and engaging in outdoor wintertime activities. However you feel about it, the seasons are about to change soon, so hope we all can make the best of the remaining winter season, especially Orion and the other winter constellations.
Visit this page to subscribe to the Classical Astronomy Update and the Northeast Ohio Astronomy (NEOastro) newsletters.
Classical Astronomy Campouts - 2014
Plans are unfolding nicely for our astronomy campouts, for upcoming weekends in the summer. We've had a few reschedulings, but here's how things look at the present time. Hope that your family can join ours for at least one of these events:
Fri-Sun May 23-25, 2014 (waning crescent Moon)
We're hoping that families from Ohio, PA and New York state will join us at this premier location for astronomy, a state park dedicated to sky watching, in a location considered one of the best dark sky sites east of the Mississippi. It's only about 4 hours from us in Cleveland, so I'm hoping that other local families will join us. This is Memorial Day weekend, Friday night through Sunday morning, but you'll be home with plenty of time for grilling during the day Sunday and all day Monday. There are some special considerations for camping at this site, so please send me an email for details if your family is interested in participating.
Thu-Sun July 17-21, 2014 (Last Quarter - moonrise after midnight)
We've had a big response from families in Virginia, about 20 so far. This location is easily accessible for families in the Washington, D.C. area, or others on the east coast willing to travel. This is our only event south of the Mason-Dixon, so I'd encourage everyone in the southern states to make the trip to the state of Washington, Jefferson and Lee. This park is not far from Monticello, Luray Caverns, Natural Bridge, and other Virginia sights.
It is wise to reserve a campsite early, since this is a busy park, and you might not get a campsite as a walk-in camper. I already reserved our site for this weekend, so the Ryan family is committed! You can reserve a site online through this reservation form. We're staying in campsite A104, and you can find a site that suits you with this campground map. (If you camp near us, be advised that I snore!)
If you're not the camping type, you can stay at the Big Meadows Lodge. I hear it's very nice (and expen$ive!) You can still come down to participate in our program, without actually sleeping in a tent!
I've already cleared it with the camp administration, and we will have no problem with having our astronomy program after regular campground quiet hours, either using the field or the picnic area near the ampitheater (shown on the map). So this promises to be a wonderful experience! (It's not too early to start praying for clear skies!)
As mentioned before, we might be teaming up with the nice people at Nature Friend magazine. So why not come down for at least one night or two? If you have not yet done so, please send an email if you might be interested in participating.
Wed-Sun August 20-24, 2014 (waning crescent Moon)
This will be an awesome event at a remote site, in the darkest patch of inky black skies in the eastern USA. Nonetheless, there are lots of daytime activities for families to enjoy, such as Pictured Rocks, the Soo locks, and the Great Lakes Maritime Museum. So far, response has been light, only a couple families have indicated interest. But we're hoping that homeschool families in Michigan will turn out for this, along with those in Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Illinois. Summer temps can be downright cool in the UP, so why not beat the summer heat by heading way north?
Please drop a line if you might be interested, and tell your friends!
Fri-Sat August 29-30, 2014 (waxing crescent Moon)
Due to some mutual scheduling conflicts, Dr. Danny Faulkner and I have had to juggle around some dates, and we arrived at this one. 2014 is a good year for your family to visit the Museum, since kids under 12 get in free. This sky event will be held at the Museum's observatory complex, and though the night sky will not be ideally dark, the other resources will make up for it. We will only be able to accomodate about 20 people per night, so please send an email if you would like to reserve a spot.
CHEO Convention -- June 20-21
I've been invited to speak at the 2014 CHEO convention, in Akron, Ohio. I'll be giving a talk explaining how Classical Astronomy is the Biblical foundation and purpose for the sky. The convention dates are June 20 and 21. This is my only speaking gig for 2014, so I hope everyone from Ohio will come to this workshop, and drop by our booth and say hi. Click here to register for the convention.
Dance of the Planets
Earlybird Special! Morning Planets - Venus, Saturn and Mars
I'm personally a nightowl, and am not at all an earlybird. But on rare occassions, I do find myself up before the Sun, when I get to see that most rare and special of sights, the morning sky! I was up early this past Saturday, and noticed some neat things in the late winter sky. So if you're one of those earlybirds who is out every morning walking the dog before sunrise, this one's for you!
You can't miss the planet Venus, which is blazing brightly as a "Morning Star" in the eastern sky, before sunrise. Though the pagan Greeks who named this planet after their love goddess, let us not be put off by this. Don't forget that Jesus is figuratively identified with the Morning Star in Scripture:
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. - Revelation 22:16
The planet Saturn emerged from the sunrise a while back, and has been poking along the last few years through the southern zodiac, currently passing through the faint constellation Libra. Saturn is high in the sky at sunrise, near the meridian, and though not as bright as Venus, still one of the brightest "stars" in the morning sky.
But the real "star" of the show is Mars, which is west of Saturn at sunrise. Mars is drawing closer to the Earth as it approaches opposition once again, and is thus steadily brightening. You really can't make a mistake with spotting Mars, since it truly is "The Red Planet." Mars currently has a "tomato soup" color as it passes near the bright star Spica in Virgo. Notice the reddish color of the star Arcturus, high in the sky above Mars. If you're not familiar with the stars Arcturus and Spica, you can find them using the handle of the Big Dipper, as explained on page 126 of our Signs & Seasons curriculum.
We'll have a lot to say about Saturn and Mars throughout 2014. Mars will reach opposition on April 8, when it will be at its brightest, and Saturn will be at opposition on May 10. After that, these planets will be in the evening sky for the rest of the spring and summer. If you come to one of our outdoor astronomy events, you'll be able to see these planets through my telescope.
These objects will cluster together the last week in August, and will be joined by the waxing crescent Moon on August 31. This promises to be a very interesting sight. So get an early start on viewing these planets by catching them some morning this winter.
Dance of the Planets
The Design of the Sky - Orion's Belt
In speaking of the constellations, you hear people say all the time, "I don't know how anyone is supposed to see those pictures in the stars. I don't see anything like that." It is true that a lot of the so-called constellations require quite a stretch of the imagination. However, a great number of the brightest and most famous constellations are formed of shapes that are actually quite familiar, and do resemble the figures that they purport to represent.
Mind you, even the best constellations are not detailed artwork renderings of the objects, but they certainly are fair "stick figure" drawings of the shapes they purport to represent. There are 88 recognized constellations on the entire celestial sphere. Of these, 48 were known to the ancient Greeks. The others were added in modern times, and many are simply "crack filler" shapes formed of faint stars, not especially obvioius, devised by experienced astronomers, simply to denote blank portions of the sky.
However, you would not realize all that from typical star maps, which show all the constellations with equal weight, as if they were all equally visible. Such maps also show convoluted "connect the dot" patterns between bright stars and faint stars, with no distinction. These are amont the reasons why many people are confused and disillusioned after trying to learn the constellations. Another reason is that it requires dedicated, persistent effort to learn the sky, an investment that few people are willing to make.
Signs & Seasons features 35 constellations, most of which are easily visible from everywhere in North America, including light-polluted neighborhoods like mine. It's worth the effort to learn the sky for many reasons, practical and aesthetic. But there's one special reason that all Christians should appreciate... the constellations actually do reveal evidence of design, as if an intelligent Creator had placed them there deliberately, as they appear.
Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Psalm 8 says that the stars are "the work of his fingers. This need not be construed as just a colorful metaphor, and we can discover this handiwork for ourselves if only we will invest the effort in learning the constellations.
From my experience, I count a good 10 constellations that really do look like the familar objects they purport to represent: The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion, Taurus, Canis Major, Leo, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Cygnus and Delphinus. It would be a very long article to discuss all these in one piece, so we'll only discuss the winter constellations for now, those stars currently visible in the evening sky in the current season. We'll try to mention the others as the seasons progress.
We are told from secular science that the magnificent order we observe in the natural realm has come about by accident, that all this wonder is a product of random chance. Following that line of thinking, the placement of the stars in the sky should be purely random. However, of the 100 brightest stars visible in the sky to the human eye, stars of first and second magnitude, a great number of them form the basic patterns of the 10 constellations listed above.
I wonder what would be the statistical odds of so many familiar shapes forming themselves at random from only 100 stars? If you were to take 100 ping pong balls and throw them out onto your living room rug, what would be the odds of those balls arranging themselves into a dipper, a man, a lion, a scorpion, etc. etc.? Then consider that the stars are not arranged on a flat rug, but in a three-dimensional volume surrounding the solar system, each star at various distances away, some closer and some farther, some brighter and others more faint, but positioned just right to appear of sufficient brightness to define the shapes we see of the constellations.
Honestly, I don't know what those odds must be, I'm no statistician, but those odds strike me as being pretty small. Then consider that mainstream science teaches that all the stars are in motion, circling the center of the galaxy, and the current solar neighborhood represents the stars that are "just passing through" at this particular moment in human history, according to the alleged billions of years of the universe. The arrangement of the constellations is just too perfect to be an accident, right here and now, at this particular time, to form recognizable shapes.
Understand that this is strictly an aesthetic argument, and is not scientific. There's bound to be some sort of science of pattern recognition, some psycho-babbling rationale of why people see shapes in places like clouds and rocks, in addition to stars. Perhaps some would argue that it would not really be all that unlikely to see such patterns in the stars. I would expect that the typical secular evolutionist would dismiss this contention, as they dismiss all other apparent coincidences. But let's consider the remarkable providence of just the winter constellations.
Take Orion, for example. Can anyone deny that a figure of a man is formed by these stars? It's clear to see an upper and lower body, well proportioned, defined by some of the brightest stars in the sky, and separated by the famous Belt. The Belt just so happens to lie closely along the celestial equator, the midpoint between the celestial poles, a very useful position, which insures that Orion is the only constellation visible from every single location on the Earth. Is all this still another set of coincidences?
Just about every culture in the world has some star lore that involved Orion. The Bible mentions him three times, calling him by the Hebrew word kesil, which means "fool." I don't know why Scripture calls Orion a fool, but he is surely a fool well placed for every eye to see.
As if Orion himself is not enough of a wonder, consider that he is facing off against Taurus, a triangle of stars that forms the distinct shape of the head of a bull. In this way, this scene appears to depict an ancient epic battle of man and beast. Ever been around a raging bull? I personally would not want to confront such a monster! Amazingly, Orion's complete pattern even includes raised arms, formed of very faint stars, which give the appearance of the Hunter holding a shield and a club, poised to strike at the Bull.
The scene is joined by the Big Dog, Canis Major, in which the legs of the dog are well enough defined to be recognizable as this type of animal. The Little Dog, Canis Major, is not much of a pattern, and Gemini does not appear very much like twins. But I hope everyone can agree that the battle of Orion and Taurus is easy to identify. In my opinion, people take Orion for granted, including astronomers, since it seems very unlikely to me that such a clear arrangement of stars could be the product of random forces in blind, purposeless universe.
Consider the unlikelihood of Orion's Belt. These three stars are of second magnitude, among the top 100 brightest stars visible from the Earth. Yet these lie nearly perfectly spaced, in a very even row.
The stars of Orion's Belt are known today by their Arabian names, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. These stars are very conspicuously blue in color, appearing nearly identical in brightness. According to mainstream secular science, Alnitak is 736 light years from Earth. However, it's neighbor Alnilam is 1340 light years away, nearly double the distance. Mintaka is in between the two at 915 light years. Though these stars have different sizes and inherent brightnesses, they all lie within the same line of sight to appear as celestial identical triplets, lying along a very straight line. Coincidence? In my opinion, I see the hand of the Creator in this unlikely alignment.
It gets better. These three stars of Orion's Belt span an angular distance in the sky of only 2.736 degrees. Out of the 100 brightest stars that cover the entire sky, here are these three that span a tiny separation of less than six lunar diameters. Over 120 Orion's Belts would be required to encircle the entire celestial sphere.
Amazingly, the separations between these stars are almost perfectly spaced. The angular distance between Alnitak and Alnilam is 1.356 degrees, while the separation between Alnilam and Mintaka is 1.386 degrees. The different in these spans is ONLY 1.782 arcminutes, which is about 1/16 the apparent diameter of a Full Moon. This is only a 2% difference in their respective distances, impossible to see with the eye.
I was flabbergasted to calculate these numbers, at how such precision goes against the notion that these stars could be the result of random chance. However, it is clear from looking at Orion's Belt that the stars do not lie in a perfectly straight line. Nonetheless, that line is actually pretty straight! If you draw a line from Alnitak to Alnilam, and another line from Alnitak to Mintaka, the angle between these lines is only 3.81 degrees. This works out to be only a 1% arc of a circle, about half of the width of a single minute on a clock face. Look at a protractor to get a sense of the size of an angle of less than 4 degrees.
For my own part, these sorts of facts give evidence that the stars are not just in a random arrangement in the sky, but suggest that, for whatever reason, it pleased the Creator to place them in such a manner that we might see His handiwork above our heads. For my part, this bolsters my faith in God. How about you? Why not make it point on your own to learn the constellations, and discover this evidence for yourself?
Til next time, God bless and clear skies,
- jay
The Ryan Family
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art
mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
- Psalm 8:3-4, a Psalm of David
|