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 in September. 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.
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If you have been following this series on nightskywatching, you know which are the directions. You should be able to find some stars using the shapes of the constellations in which they are. In the South, you should be able to find Dhanu or Sagittarius, where you have the planets Jupiter (Brihaspati) and Saturn (Shani). The magnificent constellation of Scorpius (Vrischika) is setting in the southwest.
This time we will try looking overhead. There are three bright stars high in the sky forming a right angled triangle. The right angle is formed by Vega or Abhijit, which is the brightest among the three. Towards the north is Deneb or Hamsa. Towards the south is Altair or Shravana.
The star Hamsa is in the constellation of Hamsa, the Swan. It has a beautiful cross shape formed by five stars, Deneb is the brightest. If the sky is a little dark, you should be able to see the Milky Way, or akashganga, as a hazy band running from Hamsa in the north through Shrawana all the way down to Dhanu in the far south.
Shrawana is in another beautiful constellation, Garuda the Eagle. Altair has two stars on either side of it forming the head of the eagle, then a line going south forming the body, and on both sides to the east and west are two stars each, forming the eagle's wings. Like in Hamsa, the Milky Way runs through Garuda.
Abhijit is in a pretty tiny constellation, made of not very bright stars. A parallelogram linked to a triangle, and Abhijit is the apex of the triangle. 
Are you able to find these? These three stars will be visible next month too, and their pattern, with their constellations around them, are easy to find. 
Last month we explained that the Milky Way is the galaxy of stars inside which our Sun is. What about the other stars that you see in the sky? Every single one of them is in the Milky Way. Every single one is quite "near" to us. For example, Shravana is 17 light years away, Abhijit is 25 light years away. Hamsa is a staggering 2600 light years away, it is one of the farthest bright stars. But a huge number of stars, around 100 billion (10000 crores), are in the band that you see running through the sky. The centre of the Milky Way and a large proportion of its stars are 25000 light years away! So we cannot see them separately and see them only as a hazy band.