With all the snow the DC Women's Hiking Group will snowshoe at the Ridgefield Golf Course off of Ridgebury Rd. on Thursday, Feb. 6th.
Snowshoes provided, so come give it a try!
Meet in the parking lot at 8:30am. 

February 2014 Constellation of the Month -- Orion

Orion, the Hunter, is the most prominent constellation visible to us in the northern hemisphere at any time of the year. It's easy to identify by the three equally-bright stars, arranged in a line, which form Orion's belt.

The two brightest stars in the constellation are at the upper left and lower right, called Betelgeuse (beetle juice) and Rigel, respectively. Both are giant stars --but of very different types. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star; it is nearing the end of its life. It has cooled and expanded to a size which is more than twice the width of the orbit of Mars -- about 500 times as wide as our own Sun. (In 5 billion years the Sun will be a red giant, its outer edge will expand out to envelop the Earth.)

Rigel, on the other hand is a blue supergiant. It is relatively young and is 10 times as hot as Betelgeuse -- and 5 times as hot as the Sun. It is 40,000 times as bright as the Sun, while Betelgeuse is 14,000 times brighter. Rigel is actually a triple star. The blue supergiant is orbited by 2 smaller stars, which orbit around each other.

But, the most spectacular objects in Orion are not the stars but nebulae. The Orion Nebula or Great Nebula of Orion is located between the two stars which make up the "sword" -- which are line up vertically below the belt. It is a huge cloud of gasses from which many stars are being formed. The equally spectacular Horsehead Nebula and the Great Nebula are just areas within a much larger nebula 1,500 light years (9,000,000,000,000,000 miles) away from us.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Tues., Feb., 4th at Scott Lot Preserve in Redding, CT.

Coming from the north on Route 7 turn left onto Old Redding Rd. Right after going under RR bear right onto Mountain Rd. Follow Mountain Rd. to end and turn left onto Peaceable St. Parking for the open space will be on the left. If you come to an electrical substation, you went too far.

Meet at 8:30am.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike at Seth Low Pierrepont State Park in Ridgefield on Thurs., Jan. 30th.

The park is located on Barlow Mt. Rd. across from Scotland and Barlow Mt. Elementary Schools.
Meet in the parking area at 8:30am.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Tues., Jan. 21st and Thurs., Jan. 23rd at Lake Windwing in Ridgefield.
Take Bennetts Farm Rd. to South Shore Drive. (Across from Ridgebury Elementary School).
Take a left in to the parking area.
Meet at 8:30am.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Tues., Jan. 14th and Thurs., Jan. 16th at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in NY.
From Rt. 35 make a left on to  Rt. 121 and follow signage for the park.
Drive past booth and take a right on to Michigan Rd.
Meet at 8:30am in parking area.

January 2014 Constellation of the Month -- Taurus

In December, we followed the band of the Milky Way from our November constellation, Cassiopeia ("the W"), to the constellation of Perseus. If we continue in that direction (roughly east) and along the band, we'll see the constellation of Auriga, which is shaped like a non-symmetrical pentagon.  Slightly south and west of Auriga, there is a prominent constellation which looks like the diagram to the left -- Taurus, the Bull.

The head of the bull is the triangle shape at the lower middle in the diagram shown here. The brightest star is Aldebaran. Aldebaran is a red giant star, nearing the end of its life; its diameter is 44 times as wide as the Sun. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will cool and expand and become a red giant itself.

The two horns of the Bull are marked by the two stars in the upper left of the diagram. Near the tip of the left horn is M1, the Crab Nebula. It is a cloud of expanding gases which are the aftermath of a star which exploded (a supernova) in the year 1054.

Aldebaran appears to be in the middle of a cluster of stars called "the Hyades", which fills up the triangle of Taurus's head. This is a group of about 200 stars that formed at the same time and which are moving together. Aldebaran is in our line-of-sight to this cluster, but it is much closer.

An even more interesting star cluster is the Pleiades, also known as the "7 Sisters". Somewhat north and west of Aldebaran, they form a uniquely memorable shape of a number of easily visible stars close together. It looks like a mini-dipper. The Subaru logo is taken from the shape of the Pleiades. Some people can see 5 stars with the naked eye, others 7, and others can see more. A telescope will show hundreds of stars surrounded by a nebula -- a vast cloud of interstellar gases and dust. In many nebulae with star clusters, the stars were formed from the nebula. But in this case, they are just passing through each other -- at a speed of about 25,000 miles per hour.