Now is the best time to stargaze

I love holiday lights, so I string up as many lights as my budget and my circuit breakers can handle in honor of Clark Griswold from the old National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I have to admit, I’m being a bit of a hypocrite adding to the light pollution, the enemy of stargazers, but I just can’t help it.

Celestially it’s getting very festive in our Butler night skies as well, especially in the eastern half of the skies, as a lot more bright stars and constellations are on the rise.

Despite having to bundle up and then some, this is the most wonderful time of the year for stargazing.

The bright and distinct constellation Orion the Hunter is accompanied by his bevy of bright stars and constellations. I call this part of the sky “Orion and his Gang.” Even in areas of urban light pollution, like my yard this time of year, it’s marvelous. Get out into the dark countryside and I guarantee it will blow you away. I think it’s a must see you should experience every holiday season.

Unfortunately, I can’t say there are any constellations with a Christmas twist to them. That’s pretty hard to find, at least in the western hemisphere, because the names and stories of the constellations date back to Greek and Roman mythology, and they didn’t exactly deck the halls with boughs of holly!

There is one constellation that if you really stretch it has a Christmas connection, and that’s Taurus the Bull. While he’s no Rudolph with a bright red nose, Taurus the Bull has a bright red eye and he leads the bright winter constellations into our celestial dome every year.

Taurus the Bull is a small but distinct constellation. You’ll see it in the early evening about halfway up in the eastern sky. I think the best way to find it is to first look for the Pleiades. With the naked eye people see six to seven stars, but with binoculars or a small telescope you can see a lot more and it’s quite a sight!

At first glance, it kind of resembles a tiny Little Dipper. It’s also known as the “Seven Little Sisters.” Astronomically the Pleiades are a large cluster of young stars, about 100 million years old and 440 light-years distant. By the way, one light-year equals almost six trillion miles.

Once you’ve spotted the Pleiades in the east, look just below and a little to the left for a small, dim, but distinct arrow pointing to the right. That little arrow allegedly outlines the snout of Taurus the Bull. Aldebaran is the brightest star in Taurus the holiday bull, and resides on the lower rung of the arrow.

The ruddy hue of Aldebaran was taken as a sign by many ancient civilizations of the ferocity of the celestial bull, but astronomically it’s a sign that it’s a cooler star.

If you look really closely at other stars in the night sky you can see that many have subtle color tinges. Stars that have a reddish tinge to them are cooler than stars that have a blueish white color. It’s like the flames in a campfire. The redder flames on the outer edge of a fire are cooler than the blueish flames in the middle.

Even though Aldebaran is a cooler star, it still sports a surface temperature of more than 6,000 degrees, a little more than you need to keep your hot cocoa warm on a cold winter evening. By comparison, the outer layer of our sun is 10,000 degrees.

The tale and tail of Taurus the Bull is hardly another “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but rather a tale of deception.

Zeus, the king of the gods, who dethroned Atlas and subsequently forced him to hold up the world, was quite a ladies’ man, at least in his own mind. He used all the tricks in the book to lure young women.

One of his love targets was Princess Europa, the daughter of a Phoenician king. Zeus had met Europa at a big holiday party one year and tried to get something going with her. However, Europa was totally underwhelmed by Zeus.

So Zeus had to become more creative and deceptive. He knew that as a hobby Princess Europa loved to raise prize bulls. She would spend hours and hours in the pasture fussing with the beautiful beasts. So being the king of the gods, with all kinds of magical power, he turned himself into Taurus, a gorgeous white bull with golden horns, and wandered into Europa’s pasture. The princess was delighted by Taurus’ beauty and gentle demeanor and spent hours grooming and gushing over the god in bull’s clothing.

One day, Europa felt so at ease with Taurus that she decided to saddle him up and take him for a short ride. This was the opportunity Zeus was waiting for.

After a few gentle rides around the pasture, the bull quickly cast off his gentle nature, kicked it into gear and shot across the countryside with Europa clinging on for dear life. She was frightened but at the same time exhilarated.

Taurus reached the sea, but that didn’t stop him. He charged into the waves with Europa still barely clinging on. He swam all the way to the Greek Island of Crete and finally stopped in his tracks. Europa was wet, frightened and sunburned as she rolled off the deceptive bull. It was then that Zeus revealed his true identity to the princess.

It worked. Europa fell head over heels for Zeus and they were quite an item for a couple of years. However, Zeus had a small attention span for any one woman and wanted to dump Europa.

Little did he know it, but Europa also developed similar feelings for Zeus and beat him to the punch. One day, Zeus came home to the once happy couple’s castle to find the locks on the gates and doors changed and all of his godly clothes in the front yard.

Even though he wasn’t a bull anymore, Europa still put Zeus out to pasture and Zeus got a big lump of coal in his stocking on Christmas morning!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his website www.lynchandthestars.com.