The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike at Sturges Park in Ridgefield on Thurs. Dec. 12th.
Take West Mountain Rd. follow to Oreneca Rd. at intersection take Rippowam Rd.

Follow Rippowan .4 miles to parking lot.
Meet at 8:30am.

December 2013 Constellation of the Month: Perseus

   Last month's constellation, Cassiopeia - the "W", is almost directly overhead around 7 PM. If you look slightly south and east of this W, you'll find Perseus. It is shaped like a wishbone which points at Cassiopeia. The band of the Milky Way runs from Cassiopeia through Perseus. (See last month's Constellation of the Month post on this blog for more on the band of the Milky Way).

Perseus's brightest star, Algol, is actually 3 stars. Two revolve around each other (actually around a point in between them) and the 3rd moves along a large elliptical path outside the other two. More than half the stars in our Milky Way galaxy are multiple stars -- doubles, triples, sextuples, etc.

Algol is also a variable star -- which are much less common than multiple stars. About every 3 days, Algol's brightness drops by about 70%. This occurs when the larger, but fainter, star passes in front (as viewed from the Earth) of the brighter star. In addition to eclipsing variables like Algol, other variable stars are caused by pulsing -- a star actually expands and shrinks periodically. The brightness of some variable stars can vary by a factor or 1,000 or more in a period of less than a year. 

Perseus is also home to M 34 -- an open cluster of about 400 stars, which is easily seen with binoculars. An open cluster is a group of stars which were formed from the same nebula (huge cloud of gasses) at roughly the same time -- about 200 million years ago for M34. This is very young as stars go; the Sun is about 5 billion years old. M34 appears to cover an area in the sky about the size of the full moon. It's about 7 light years across, and about 1,500 light years away. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, which is the distance light travels in one year. So, when you're looking at this cluster, you're actually seeing it as it was 1,500 years ago.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Tues., Dec. 3rd and Thurs., Dec. 5th at Bennett's Pond State Park in Ridgefield.
Take Rt. 7 to Bennett's Farm Rd.
Follow about 1 mile.
Look for brown State Park sign and parking area will be on right side of road.
Meet at 8:30am in parking area.

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Tues., Nov. 26th at Topstone Park in Redding, CT.

Take Topstone Rd. off of Rt. 7.
Follow road over RR tracks until it becomes a dirt road.
Shortly after, a parking area will be on the right side of the road.
Meet at 8:30am.
No hike on Thursday, November 28th.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike at Pine Mountain in Ridgefield on Tues., Nov., 19th and Thurs., Nov., 21st.
Take Ridgebury Rd. to George Washington Highway.
Make right on to Pine Mountain Rd.
Parking area will be near end of road.
Meet at 8:30am.

Constellation of the Month - Cassiopeia, the "W"

Cassiopeia is a "W"- shaped constellation.  It's high in the sky towards the East soon after sunset in November. 

Cassiopeia is an interesting constellation for several reasons:

1. It's Circumpolar: It's one of a few constellations that never rise and never set – for viewers in earth's Northern Hemisphere. They just (appear to) go in circles around the North Star -- every day a circle, and every year a much slower circle. At 6AM it will be low in the sky to the north, and 6 months from now in the evening, it will be about the same place.

If you lived at the North Pole, all the stars you could see would be circumpolar. But they'd only be half the stars in the sky, because the other half -- which you would never see -- would be circumpolar for those penguins looking up from the South Pole.

2. It's always opposite the Big Dipper, with the North Star about midway between them. So, if you look north from Cassiopeia, and keep going north and lower in the sky, you'll find the Big Dipper low in the north. 3 months ago and 3 months from now, they were and will be opposite each other east to west.

3. The band of the Milky Way goes through it. We're in the Milky Way galaxy, which is shaped like a disk. When we see it as a fuzzy band of many, many stars, we're looking along the plane of the disk, so we see what looks like a band of stars. When we look anywhere except along this plane we just see a few stars that are close, and that's what the rest of the sky (outside the band) looks like.

In ancient mythology, Cassiopeia is the Queen to King Cepheus, our October 2013 constellation of the month. 

The DC Women's Hiking Group will hike Thursday, Nov. 7th at Florida Refuge in Ridgefield.
There is no school on Tuesday the 5th, so no hike.

Take Rt. 7 and turn onto Florida Hill Road. Make a right onto High Valley Road.
Park along the side of High Valley Road closest to Florida Hill Road.
Meet at 8:30am.