Nightskywatching
by
Kamal Lodaya

Box
Every issue, JM has a map of some stars seen during the month, with a small explanation. Take this map to a place where the sky when you face South is dark and there are no lights in that direction. East is where the Sun rises in the morning.
The map shows stars seen at 9 pm on August 1st, or at 8 pm on August 15th, or at 7 pm on August 31st. Take a few minutes to let your eyes get adjusted to the darkness. Then you will start seeing stars. Use a small torch (maybe from your phone) covered with red paper to give a soft red light to the map. Red light interferes least with your ability to see things in the dark.
End of Box -----------------
Facing South, you will find the large constellation and "rashi" (zodiac sign) of Vrischika or Scorpius. The bright reddish star in the scorpion's middle is called Antares or Jyeshtha or Kettai or Parijat. 
Antares is one of the largest known stars, a {red giant}. If it were at the centre of our solar system, the planet Jupiter would be inside the star! In other words, the diameter of the star is greater than that of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. It is estimated that soon, within the next million years or so, Antares will explode to form a {supernova}. It will be as bright as the Moon then even though it is 550 light years away from us!
The tail of the scorpion, with two stars Shaula and Lesath very close to each other forming the "sting", is called the Moola nakshatra.
To Vrischika's east (left) is the constellation and "rashi" of Dhanu or Sagittarius the Archer. The little trapezium of stars is named the Uttarashadha nakshatra, and pointing towards Scorpius is the Purvashadha nakshatra, forming the bow and arrow aimed at its heart.

Planets
But it is unlikely that you will see Dhanu looking like the map! That is because the bright planet Jupiter (Guru or Brihaspati) and the less bright planet Saturn (Shani) are both in this rashi in the year 2020, but are not marked on the map, to the east (left) of Uttarashadha. So most likely you will see them before you see the other stars, and then you can trace out Dhanu to their right towards Vrischika. Above them you can see the star Shravana or Altair.
On 3rd August, the Full Moon will be near Jupiter and Saturn. August 20 is New Moon. The month of Shravana (also called Saawan) ends with the amavasya and the month of Bhadrapada begins.
Last month we had the Shravana poornima, can you guess why it is so named? What is the next month in the Indian calendar after Shravana?

Stars again
It is the rainy season. Sometimes the rain washes out all the dust and pollution in the atmosphere and you get a really dark sky visible away from city lights. If you are lucky enough to see this, you will be amazed to find that running from overhead to the horizon, through Shravana down near Dhanu and Vrischika, is a hazy band. It is called the Milky Way, or akashaganga. If you get a chance, see it through binoculars. You will see what Galileo Galilei saw in the 16th century with his small telescope, that this cloudy looking band is made up of thousands of faint stars.
In the 18th century, William Herschel was able to show that this is indeed a huge collection of stars, a galaxy, and our Sun and its solar system are themselves inside this galaxy, far from its centre. The centre of the Milky Way is in the direction of Sagittarius, and it is brighter in this region.