Under Southern Skies

A Whole New Part of the Universe

I’ve just spent about two weeks under southern hemisphere skies. I’ve been teaching astronomy aboard a cruise ship on behalf of the Smithsonian Travels program (which I’ve been doing for about four years now). It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. And actually, it’s a great way for me to find out what people want to know about astronomy. So, it’s a win-win all the way around.

The best part of this one has been the southern hemisphere sky. It’s gorgeous. It’s filled with things I don’t get to see all the time, like the Southern Cross. The Milky Way is amazing. If you have a telescope, you can see things like the Southern Pleiades star cluster, the Omega Centauri globular cluster, and the Magellanic Clouds (neighboring galaxies) in all their glory.  I didn’t have a scope (they don’t work so well on a rocking ship), but we did have some binoculars and scanned the sky when we could. The biggest problems are clouds, humidity, and lights. Even at sea, there are always some lights on (for safety, which is understandable).

If you ever have the chance (and don’t already live in the Southern Hemisphere) get south of the equator and view the skies there.  At first you’ll be totally lost without the familiar ones. But then, you’ll start to make out Orion (upside down), and other star patterns you know from “up here”. It’s a huge change, and it really reorients your thinking about the sky. Well worth the experience!

If you can’t get there anytime soon, you can explore those skies through Astronomy Online’s Southern Night sky page. You can also download a free sky chart of the Southern Hemisphere for this month at Starmap.com