Nightskywatching
by
Kamal Lodaya

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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.
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The map shows stars seen at 9 pm on July 1st, or at 8 pm on July 15th, or at 7 pm on July 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.
Facing South, you will find the large constellation of Vrischika or Scorpius. It is also a "rashi". The scorpion's head (three stars) is called the Anuradha nakshatra. The bright reddish star Antares in its middle is called Jyeshtha or Kettai or Parijat. The tail of the scorpion, with two stars very close to each other forming the "sting", is called the Moola nakshatra.
Gandhiji learnt to recognize the constellations and stars in the night sky when he was in Yerwada jail in Pune with Kaka Kalelkar. In a letter he wrote to children in Sabarmati ashram, he regretted that he never got to see Parijat. The map should help you find it.
Here is another way. If you know how to find the constellation of Saptarshi in the North, and follow the curve of its tail to Swati and Chitra and the little Hasta, you will find they are in the southwest. Taking a right angle left coming up from Chitra to Swati until you reach the south, you should find the reddish looking Jyeshtha.
Going the other way from Chitra to Hasta and taking a right angle down, you will find two bright stars (below right from Scorpius). The one on the left is Alpha Centauri, just 4 light years away, the nearest star after our Sun. Here is your chance to see it.
Just imagine, seen from Alpha Centauri, our Sun looks like a similar yellow star!

Planets
The Moola nakshatra is the "sting" of the scorpion. If you follow the direction they point to towards the southeast horizon, you will find the bright planet Jupiter (Guru or Brihaspati) and the less bright planet Saturn (Shani). They are better seen later at night when they rise higher. On 3rd June, the Moon will be near Jupiter and Saturn. July 5 is Full Moon (Ashadha poornima or Guru poornima) and July 20 is New Moon. The month of Ashadha ends with the amavasya and the month of Shravana begins.
Last month we had the Jyeshtha poornima, can you guess why it is so named?
Hmm, the sky is so big. Why do the Moon and Jupiter and Saturn find only one place to gather together in? This kind of coincidence is a great boon to astrologers, they will forecast all kinds of things from such "conjunctions" (yuti?). If you have been following this series of articles in JM you will have realized that the Moon and planets (and the Sun if you could see the stars behind it) follow the same circular arc along the sky, and what we call the nakshatras (not all vinmeen are nakshatras), such as Anuradha, Jyeshtha and Moola, and the rashis such as Vrischika, are so named because they mark their path in the sky. Since the Moon goes around this path over one month, on one day of the month it has to come in front of Jupiter and Saturn. The Moon is about 4 lakh km away, Jupiter behind it is 75 crore km, Saturn behind it is 140 crore km away.