The Brightest Stars

Fred Schaaf

Description

"Fred Schaaf is one of the most experienced astronomical observers of our time. For more than two decades, his view of the sky-what will be visible, when it will be visible, and what it will look like-has encouraged tens of thousands of people to turn their eyes skyward."
—David H. Levy, Science Editor, Parade magazine, discoverer of twenty-one comets, and author of Starry Night and Cosmic Discoveries

"Fred Schaaf is a poet of the stars. He brings the sky into people's lives in a way that is compelling and his descriptions have all the impact of witnessing the stars on a crystal-clear dark night."
—William Sheehan, coauthor of Mars: The Lure of the Red Planet and The Transits of Venus

In this book, you’ll meet the twenty-one brightest stars visible from Earth. You’ll learn how to find these stars and discover the best ways to see them. Each star is profiled in a separate chapter, with detailed guidance on what to look for while observing it. Suitable for beginners as well as experienced amateur astronomers, the book shares fascinating information about the lore and legends connected with each star through history, as well as what the science of astronomy has to teach us about the star’s physical nature.
Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

Part One: Stars in the Sky.

1. How Bright I s Bright?

2. Meet the 1st-Magnitude Stars.

3. The Locations, Yearly Motions, and Names of the Stars.

4. Seeing Stars Better (Skies, Eyes, and Telescopes).

Part Two: Stars in the Universe.

5. Parts, Structures, Distances, and Motions in the Universe.

6. The Varieties of the Stars.

7. The Lives and Deaths of the Stars.

Part Three: Profiles of the Brightest Stars.

8. Sirius.

9. Canopus.

10. Alpha Centauri.

11. Arcturus.

12. Vega.

13. Capella.

14. Rigel.

15. Procyon.

16. Achernar.

17. Betelgeuse.

18. Beta Centauri.

19. Beta Crucis.

20. Altair.

21. Aldebaran.

22. Spica.

23. Antares.

24. Pollux.

25. Fomalhaut.

26. Beta Crucis.

27. Deneb.

28. Regulus.

Appendix A. The Brightest Stars: Position, Spectral Type, Apparent and Absolute Magnitude, and Distance.

Appendix B. The Brightest Stars: Spectral type, Color Index, Color, and Surface temperature.

Appendix C. Midnight and 9:00 P.M. Culminations, Season of Prime Evening Visibility.

Appendix D. Diameters and Masses of the Brightest Stars.

Appendix E. Motions of the Brightest Stars.

Appendix F. The 200 Brightest Stars.

Glossary.

Sources.

Illustration Credits.

Index.

Sujets

• Astronomie
• Astrophysique
• Science
• Astronomy
• Sciences et techniques
• Space Science

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 21 juillet 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470249178
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE B RIGHTEST S TARS
D ISCOVERING THE U NIVERSE THROUGH THE S KY ’ S M OST B RILLIANT S TARS
Fred Schaaf
This book is dedicated to my wife, Mamie, who has been the Sirius of my life.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2008 by Fred Schaaf. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Illustration credits appear on page 272 .
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Schaaf, Fred.
The brightest stars : discovering the universe through the sky s most brilliant stars / Fred Schaaf.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-471-70410-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Stars—Luminosity function—Amateurs’ manuals. 2. Stars—Amateurs’ manuals. 3. Astronomy—Amateurs’ manuals. I. Title.
QB815.S33 2008
523.8-dc22
2008000278
Printed in the United States of America
10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE
Stars in the Sky
1 How Bright Is Bright?
2 Meet the 1st-Magnitude Stars
3 The Locations, Yearly Motions, and Names of the Stars
4 Seeing Stars Better (Skies, Eyes, and Telescopes)
PART TWO
Stars in the Universe
5 Parts, Structure, Distances, and Motions in the Universe
6 The Varieties of the Stars
7 The Lives and Deaths of the Stars
PART THREE
Profiles of the Brightest Stars
8 Sirius
9 Canopus
10 Alpha Centauri
11 Arcturus
12 Vega
13 Capella
14 Rigel
15 Procyon
16 Achernar
17 Betelgeuse
18 Beta Centauri
19 Alpha Crucis
20 Altair
21 Aldebaran
22 Spica
23 Antares
24 Pollux
25 Fomalhaut
26 Beta Crucis
27 Deneb
28 Regulus
Appendix A The Brightest Stars: Position, Spectral Type, Apparent and Absolute Magnitude, and Distance
Appendix B The Brightest Stars: Spectral Type, Color Index, Color, and Surface Temperature
Appendix C Midnight and 9:00 P . M . Culminations, Season of Prime Evening Visibility
Appendix D Diameters and Masses of the Brightest Stars
Appendix E Motions of the Brightest Stars
Appendix F The 200 Brightest Stars
Glossary
Sources
Illustration Credits
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first person I want to thank in connection with this book is Kate Bradford. Kate acted as acquisitions editor for two books of mine at the same time: The Brightest Stars and The 50 Best Sights in Astronomy . Now that both books have come to fruition ( 50 Best Sights was published by John Wiley & Sons in 2007), I feel extremely gratified to have been able to bring them into being. But the whole process could not have gotten off the ground without Kate’s skilled help and support.
The next person I worked with on these two books was editor Teryn Johnson. I’ve not forgotten her congenial support. The person who has worked the most, and the most vitally, with me on these books, however, has been Christel Winkler. She has been patient and understanding under trying circumstances. I wish to give my deepest thanks to her for her tremendous and conscientious efforts to keep these books on schedule.
Now let me turn to the diagrams, maps, and artwork produced for The Brightest Stars . Many of them were created by two old friends of mine, Guy Ottewell and Doug Myers. Their work is always unique and brilliant. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to both of them.
Vital maps were also provided by Robert C. Victor and D. David Batch, who produce the Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar. Sky Calendar is a wonderful resource for all knowledge levels of skywatchers, and teachers, too. It is available from the Abrams Planetarium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824. You can also check out the associated Skywatcher’s Diary at www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/diary.html .
I NTRODUCTION
T he season was winter. It was probably the winter I turned six years old. All I know for sure is that things got started when I read a section of a book at school. The section told about the brightest stars and constellations of winter. That night, I lay awake in my dark bedroom, peering out through the slits between the big window’s venetian blinds. And that was how I first really made contact with one of the greatest inspirations of my life: the stars.
But it was not just any stars I was seeing through the blinds and outside between the bare winter tree branches. These were the brightest stars. First, the blue-white star Rigel, which the book had talked about, glittered through the trees and truly pierced my heart with its beauty and wonder. Only I didn’t know initially that it was Rigel. It was so splendid I thought it must be Sirius, the blue-white brightest-of-all star that the book had also told me about. It wasn’t until minutes later, as I lay watching and pondering Rigel, that I suddenly caught sight of a second spark of blue radiance. My already wonderstruck mind reeled because this blue light burned several whole qualitative levels of brightness greater than the first star. I was gazing, for the first time, upon Sirius, star of stars, the brightest of all stellar jewels in the firmament. And I would never be the same again, for I had started to make the acquaintance of the brightest stars.
Welcome to a book devoted to the brightest stars. Much has been written about the planets of our solar system, and rightfully so, for they are marvelous. But when we look up in the sky we see twenty-one stars that are usually brighter than Mars. One of them—my childhood flame, Sirius—is almost always brighter than any of the planets except Venus and Jupiter. And these stars do not shine with the steady light of the planets. Stars twinkle. That twinkling, although it is caused by Earth’s atmosphere, beckons us to beyond—beyond our planets, beyond this solar system, beyond the reach of our spaceships for the foreseeable future, the stars call to us. And the message of starlight is first that these pretty pieces of trembling fire are suns in some essential ways like our own. Even without close inspection, we can realize that we are seeing suns and imagine that some, perhaps many, of the stars have their own sets of planets. We can even imagine that maybe sentient beings like ourselves are staring back and wondering about the stars in their sky, including our own Sun.
The brightest stars deserve a book of their own. Stars are the most important units of the universe at large. The very word astronomy means “ordering of the stars.” When we look up in the natural night sky, almost every one of the multitude of lights we see is a star. It occurred to me in a flash a number of years ago that a great way to teach people about stars in general was to teach them about the most outstanding individual stars, using those stars as powerful exemplars. One could do this by selecting the most technically interesting stars, even ones so distant or hidden that the largest amateur telescope could never show them. But the best form of learning is learning through direct involvement—in astronomy, through actual observation. This is especially true in today’s world, in which a vast majority of people live under skies significantly degraded by human-made light pollution. In such a world, it is the brightest stars that everybody can see, even people who have only their unaided eyes to use.
Are all the major kinds of stars represented by the twenty-one brightest, the stars of the so-called 1st magnitude? Not quite. But if you count the red dwarf and white dwarf companions of these stars, most of which are within the reach of amateur telescopes, you really do have a nearly complete representation of the basic different spectral types, luminosity classes, and special categories (double stars, variable stars) of stellar bodies.
The brightest stars have not had a book really devoted entirely to them for many decades, perhaps not for a century, since Martha Evans Martin’s delightful 1907 work, The Friendly Stars . Martin’s book was aimed mostly at the completely novice stargazer. The book you now hold in your hand is really meant for a wider range—everyone from the absolute beginner to the veteran amateu