dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (03/26/85)
You can use the moon as a guide to some famous celestial objects early Tuesday evening. More on what to look for -- when we come back. March 26: Two Star Clusters Near the Moon As the sky darkens on Tuesday -- until the moon sets not long after the sun -- you can use the moon as a guide to some famous celestial objects. The crescent moon Tuesday evening will be located more or less in between two famous star clusters -- both in the constellation Taurus -- the hazy little dipper-shaped Pleiades and the V-shaped cluster Hyades. These two are related in mythology. They're considered half-sisters -- together known as the fourteen Atlantides, or sea nymphs. Both groups of stars are really star clusters -- each consisting of stars that are gravitationally related in space. Both clusters are beautiful -- even more so if you look at them with binoculars. The Pleiades cluster appears much smaller than the Hyades in our sky. To the naked eye, the Pleiades looks like a misty little dipper. It's really much more dipper-like than the real Little Dipper located in the northern sky. The Hyades cluster looks like the letter V -- and the brightest star in the V-shaped cluster is Aldebaran. Aldebaran got its name because it appears in the sky so soon after the distinctive Pleiades. The word Aldebaran comes from the Arabic for "follower" -- Aldebaran rises shortly after the Pleiades and follows the cluster across the sky. So that's Tuesday evening -- two star clusters on either side of the moon -- one shaped like a tiny dipper and the other like the letter V -- visible to anyone who looks outside shortly after the sun goes down. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin