Home > Asterism, Constellations, Ephemeris Program > Ephemeris: 08/29/2024 – Centaur or Teapot, you decide!

Ephemeris: 08/29/2024 – Centaur or Teapot, you decide!

August 29, 2024

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, August 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 21 minutes, setting at 8:23, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:03. The Moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:02 tomorrow morning.

Low in the south at 10 PM shines the heart of summer Milky Way. The constellation that’s seen there is Sagittarius which is supposed to be a centaur with a bow and arrow. We modern folk haven’t seen a centaur outside a Harry Potter movie, so we see its stars looking like a teapot, a short and stout little teapot like in the children’s song. It is tipped to the West with the Milky Way like steam rising from its spout, which is about to pour its tea on the southwestern horizon later tonight. Sagittarius is just begging to be explored with binoculars or a very low power telescope to see its myriad of stars, star clusters and nebulae. As fabulous as all this appears, we cannot see into the heart of the Milky Way for all the clouds of dust and gas in the way.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

A series of frames of Sagittarius showing how authors have the seen the stick figures of the stars in Sagittarius and Scorpius
Here are a series of frames of Sagittarius showing how authors have the seen the stick figures of the stars in Sagittarius and Scorpius. The 1st frame shows the sky as it would be seen with the naked eye. The 2nd frame shows the lines from Stellarium that it calls the Western sky lore. The 3rd frame is from a book by H. A. Rey titled The Stars a New Way to See Them. It came out in 1952 about the time I became interested in astronomy although I never bought the book. It’s his attempt to match the lines between the stars with the constellation figure. The 4th frame shows the constellation art that’s provided with Stellarium showing a centaur aiming for Scorpius the scorpion. The 5th frame shows the Teapot asterism as I have described in the text. This is easiest to see especially that Sagittarius is very low in our sky and the faint stars that would delineate a Centaur are lost due to the great amount of atmosphere that we have to look through to see them. Click or tap on the image to enlarge it. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

My first guide to the constellations was Stars by Zim and Baker, a Golden Guide. I checked, it has been revised and is still available. H. A. Rey’s book is also still available.

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