This is the Dawning

of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquarius, Aquarius, A-quarius!

That's all I, the Crumby Ovate can remember of that particular song because it was too insipid to bother memorizing, in marked contrast to the Dr. Pepper jingle, which must not have been too insipid to memorize. But this morning I was condemned to sing the Aquarius song, what I remembered of it, repetitively. Why? Easy that, Uranus is in Aquarius, so I had to celebrate the event in song.

From my vantage point at the Cow Barn, enveloped by the heavily polluted Austink skies, looking southeast, at around 4:15 AM I can see two stars well, employing only my spectacles. These two stars are Altair in the constellation Aquila, and Fomalhaut, very low on the horizon, in the constellation, Grus*. Aquila-eagle, Grus-crane. It's a bird lovers' cornucopia.

Since I can only see two stars well, those two stars, Altair and Fomalhaut serve as guide posts to the other stars I want to see and also to the planets, Nepune and, of course, Uranus. Oh! I almost forgot. Here's how the song went.

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Uranus, Uranus, Ur-anus.
Uranus is up in Aquarius, that is where it likes to be-ee,
Uranus, Uranus, Ur-anus.

As you may see, I changed the song up a little to account for Uranus' current dispostion.

There are a good many stars on the edge of spectacle vision off to the southeast at that time of the morning. These stars are easily espied in my 8x42 Swift Ultralight binoculars. With some patience I can, employing the Swifts, figure out the constellations sometimes and which parts of the constellations I'm espying. Then once I figure out where I'm looking at, sitting on the ground in the east pasture beside my telescope, I can quickly switch from looking through the Swifts and line up the telescope on that spot using my Rigel Quickfinder. Then I can check to see if the telescope's pointed where the Swifts were pointed using my 9x60 finder scope which gives a view fairly similar to the Swifts. If it is the same spot, then I can check that stuff out in the 10" reflector telescope which the Rigel and the spotter scope are attached, to.

At first I was really annoyed that I had to do all this because of all the light pollution. But now I consider it a challenge and feel like it is a good way to learn the constellations, because of all the required repetition of observation.

Around 5:30 AM, or a tad later, it starts getting too light off in the southeast and the stars begin to fade out. So there's not much time to see the low on the horizon constellations like Grus, Capricorn and Scorpius right now at this point in space and time. Or maybe they never get higher up relative to my location.

Ha! though. Did I espy Neptune, and, of course, Uranus? Easy that, you betchum. But I have to keep looking to discern which ones of all the tiny little dots were Neptune, and, of course, Uranus. I have a pretty good idea which ones of the tiny dots they are, but I need motion and time, to tell, fer sure.

Dude, where's Neptune. Ah yes, the sea god, is in Capricornus, the sea goat. Too funny!

* Actually, Fomalhaut is in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, but what the heck. It's real close to Grus.