“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

     Hello and good morning everyone! In today's post I'm going to talk about something that I'm really passionate about other than reading and exploring new places—stargazing! I like to observe stars and other celestial objects on the night sky. It calms me a lot and it makes night time feels less scary. Since I don't have any binoculars or telescopes to aid my stargazing activities, I just do it using the naked eye. Insya-Allah one day I'll buy a proper telescope to stargaze in the future :)

                       

        Actually when I'm 12-15 years old, I dreamed about being an astronomer. I had to let go of that ambition after I realize that I can't do physics well enough to be qualified as an astronomer. I hate physics hahaha. My hate towards physics is much more stronger than my love towards the stars. 

      These past few days, it is a bit hard to see stars etc. because of the cloudy sky. It's always raining here in Bangi. It's cold too so to those people who are staying in Bangi or any other location that's always raining, make sure to take care of your health! Okay, okay back to the stargazing stuffs, I'm going to explain a bit about my favorite constellation and how to spot them on the night sky. They're just basic constellation and are very easy to spot. 

 

       The first constellation is Orion! According to a website called Art of Manliness, Orion was a massive, supernaturally gifted hunter who was the son of Poseidon. It was said he regularly hunted with Artemis (Goddess of the Hunt) on the island of Crete, and that he was killed either by her bow, or by the sting of the great scorpion who later became the constellation Scorpius.Orion is one of the largest constellation and is very easy to spot. You just need to look for its' belt—Orion's Belt. It is consists of 3 stars that is close to each other. Can you spot it in the picture above? If you can identify the belt, then you can easily see the constellation as a whole after that! We can usually spot Orion clearly from November to February.

        Next is the constellation Scorpius. Scorpius is the latin for scorpion. It is best viewed in July where it is clearly visible. The constellation have many bright stars in it so it is fair to say that this constellation is also one of the easiest one to spot! The brightest star in this constellation is called the Antares. If you look at the first picture above, the red-orange colored star is the Antares! It is said to be the heart of the Scorpius.

           Canis Major is also a constellation that you must know. It's known that Canis Major represents the Orion's hunting dog that is always trailing behind the Orion. So, if you could spot the Orion, spotting this constellation should not be a problem to you. This constellation contains the brightest star in the night sky, which is called the Sirius. Since it's the brightest, it's very easy to spot this star too. Canis Major is best viewed in the February.

           Other famous constellation is the Ursa Major. It is latin for larger bear. Try and look for the big dipper in the above picture. You know big dipper right? We learned about it when we were in our primary school. The seven stars of big dipper can be always easily recognized while the rest of the bear, in the light polluted areas, can be hard to spot using the naked eye.

           So I have shared four constellation that are easy to recognize in the night sky. There are actually a lot of other constellations but it is a little bit trickier to spot them. Did you know that we can also see planets with our naked eyes? But it can be confusing to differentiate the planets from the stars. I'll share a tip to you guys on how to differentiate these two celestial objects. Stars they twinkled but planets don't. Do you understand? Try and see if you get them! Other easier way to spot stars, constellations and planets are by using applications like SkyWiki or Stellarium. You can download them in your phone and use the applications to guide you while you are stargazing!

     So I think that is all for today's post. I hope what I wrote this time can help you a bit if you decide to stargazing next time! Thank you for reading and have a nice day everyone!