8 Summer 2019 Applegater
THE STARRY SIDE
Summer thoughts
BY GREELEY WELLS
Spring and its floods are over. Summer
and its warmth are coming. Clear
night skies await.  So get out there, get
comfortable, and look up.  
Directly overhead in June you’ll see
Bootes  (pronounced bo-OH-teez)  the
Herdsman, marked by the very bright
star Arcturus. (Look for the Big Dipper
setting in the northwest and “follow the
arc” of its handle to find Arcturus.) East
of Bootes is Hercules, roughly shaped like
an hourglass: two trapezoids, one large and
one smaller. Between Bootes and Hercules
is an obvious, beautiful “C” shape called
Corona Borealis, the crown. 
Look to the northwest of this group
to find the subtle constellation Coma
Berenices. Then look a little farther west
to find Leo the Lion. Coma Berenices used
to be the end of Leo’s tail until an ancient-
Egyptian astrologer got in trouble with his
king. To redeem himself, he renamed these
stars after the queen’s beautiful hair. (The
king was happy, and the astrologer got off
free!) Tail or locks, it’s an attractive, dim
group of stars.  The darker your sky, the
better it looks. 
Each night these constellations move
slightly west. To measure that movement,
extend your fist at arm’s length at the same
time and place each night. Every night the
sky progresses about one fist west, so these
constellations will end up in the same place
at this time next year.
Summer solstice
June 21 is summer solstice, the longest
day and shortest night of the year. The sun
is the farthest south on the eastern and
western horizon lines and at its highest
point in the sky all day.
You might wonder why summer
solstice is not the hottest day of the year.
The answer is a phenomenon called “the
lag of the seasons.”  It’s like a huge ship
changing course: the pilot throws the
wheel over to the desired side, but, as on
the Titanic, almost nothing happens. Even
when the ship starts to change course, the
change is minute at first and very slowly
gains with time.  With the lag of the
seasons, the land, water, and air have to
soak in the heat for a while to warm up. So
it’ll be months later—in August—before
we see the hottest days.
A similar thing happens when we try
to address climate change. It’s such a huge
worldwide thing, it will take years, dare
I say decades, for our mitigating actions
to truly affect it. It’s like the lag between
turning a ship’s wheel and the actual
Photo: Stellarium (stellarium.org).
turning of the
ship. It’s like
Greeley Wells
the lag of the
seasons. It’s the
lag between our actions and their effects.
Meanwhile, the earth is steadily
warming, and it makes sense to minimize
our carbon footprint now. If we do, and
if scientists’ predictions turn out to be
right, we’ll save humanity and life on this
beautiful planet. 
Even if predictions turn out to be
wrong, no harm done.  We’ll have a
cooler earth, and we’ll have cleaner night
skies for seeing and appreciating our
stars and planets. And that’s not a bad
thing. Hmm…seems like a no-brainer.
Happy dark, clear, warm nights!
Greeley Wells
greeley@greeley.me
Of Note
Mercury is in the sunset until 10:30 pm in June and July.
By August he is almost invisible.
Venus rises in the east in June at about 4:30 am for a brief
morning view. In July she rises at approximately 5 am (good
luck!), and in August she’s invisible in the sun.
Mars sets about 10:30 pm in June and 9:45 pm in July.
Jupiter is perfectly visible after 8 pm in June and after 6
pm in July. By August Jupiter is still visible in the late evening,
setting about 1 am.  
Saturn rises about 10:20 pm in June; in July and August
Saturn rises around sunset and stays up almost all night.  
Meteor showers
July 27 - 30. Look for Delta Aquariids meteors before
dawn, 15 to 20 meteors per hour in a dark sky.
August 12 - 13. Look for Perseid meteors late evening to
dawn. Although the peak of this shower will be marred by
the brilliant waxing gibbous moon, it will probably still be
one of the greatest showers of the year. (Stand in the shadow
of a tree or building to block out the moonlight.)