Solving the mysteries of the night sky
For most of us, the night sky is an enigma.
Its black bowl is punctuated with countless stars. If it’s clear
enough and dark enough, the Milky Way smears a swath across the
heavens.
Solving the mysteries of the night sky
For most of us, the night sky is an enigma.
Its black bowl is punctuated with countless stars. If it’s clear enough and dark enough, the Milky Way smears a swath across the heavens.
Pulling the stars together into constellations that describe the shapes observers saw thousands of years ago is a mystery for most of us. How does that resemble Orion, the hunter? Our Big Dipper is more properly referred to as Ursa Major, the big bear. Huh?
“Southern California StarWatch,” just published by Voyageur Press, illuminates the night sky for people who did not grow up in planetariums or observatories.
Author Mike Lynch employs a gee-whiz style of writing that conveys his excitement while not putting readers off. Unlike Carl Sagan’s New Age wonder at the universe, Lynch employs an approach and language that’s suitable for inquisitive middle school students but still engaging for adults.
The hard-cover book uses a spiral binding – the better for use in science projects, no doubt.
The first chapters of the book are filled with brilliant color photographs, most courtesy of the Hubble Deep Space Telescope. The images are breathtaking.
One depicts a portion of the Eagle Nebula, called the Fingers of Creation, as it gives birth to new stars. Seeing it is almost like peering into creation.
The book is logically organized, beginning with a chapter Lynch calls “Quantitative Meditation.” That sounds pretty lofty, but it’s really just Lynch’s attempt to get people out under the sky, laying on their backs until their sense of wonder unfolds.
First, he mentions the number of stars visible to the naked eye in a dark sky. It’s about 3,000, but “don’t try to count stars or I guarantee you will fall asleep,” he writes.
Even with a pair of binoculars, the sky lights up with countless stars. Lynch claims that in our own Milky Way galaxy alone there may be a trillion (that’s 1,000,000,000,000) stars revolving around its black hole.
It’s the numbers that tend to get away from readers. It takes our sun, a million miles in diameter, 225 million years to complete one orbit of the Milky Way Galaxy, at a speed of 130 miles per second. It produces the same amount of light as a trillion-trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) 100-watt lightbulbs), and it’s relatively insignificant in the universe’s star starting line-up. More than half the stars in the sky are bigger and brighter.
Before the “Southern California” end of the title puts readers off, it’s important to remember that the earth is vast. Los Angeles is at 34 degrees north latitude, and San Francisco is at 38 degrees. With San Benito County located in between, it may be helpful to remember that the width of a finger held at arm’s length obscures just about 1 percent of the night sky, while a fist spans 10 percent. A full moon is half a degree.
“Southern California StarWatch” carries a list price of $26.95.
Brian Augustine earns his living as a counselor in a small community in the Sierra Foothills.
But when the muse struck, Augustine embarked on an arduous adventure, one he said he’s not likely to repeat.
Augustine, a fourth-generation Californian, wrote a meticulously researched novel, much of which is set in San Benito County.
“Shadows on Parallel Trails” is a quick, engaging read, even though it weighs in at 424 pages.
The book is set mostly in the 1870s, and it follows the loves a Californio who grew up as California evolved from a backwater of Mexico to the new American frontier and a lawman bound to the new California.
The volume contains evidence of some sloppy proofreading and editing, but that doesn’t detract from the essential fact that Augustine knows how to tell a good story.
“Shadows” is from Publish America, and is listed at $24.95 on Amazon.com.
For local residents, the historically accurate depictions of the region, and a text peppered with names familiar to any student of California history, are especially appealing.
Augustine may telegraph the novel’s ending a bit – if you like surprises, don’t read the back cover – but reading about Vasquez and the Tres Pinos Massacre make the endeavor thoroughly worthwhile.
