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The night sky is the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight , starlight , and airglow , depending on location and timing.
Stars in the night sky. The first star catalogue in Greek astronomy was created by Aristillus in approximately 300 BC, with the help of Timocharis. [10] The star catalog of Hipparchus (2nd century BC) included 1,020 stars, and was used to assemble Ptolemy's star catalogue. [11] Hipparchus is known for the discovery of the first recorded nova ...
The Sky at Night is a documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC. The show had the same permanent presenter, Sir Patrick Moore , from its first monthly broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013.
As the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius appears in some of the earliest astronomical records. Its displacement from the ecliptic causes its heliacal rising to be remarkably regular compared to other stars, with a period of almost exactly 365.25 days holding it constant relative to the solar year.
It is the brightest star in the constellation and the third-brightest in the night sky, outshone by only Sirius and Canopus. α Centauri A (Rigil Kentaurus) has 1.1 times the mass and 1.5 times the luminosity of the Sun, while α Centauri B (Toliman) is smaller and cooler, at 0.9 solar mass and less than 0.5 solar luminosity. [15]
Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also designated α Carinae, which is romanized (transliterated) to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude of −0.74, it is outshone only by Sirius.
First-magnitude stars are the brightest stars in the night sky, with apparent magnitudes lower (i.e. brighter) than +1.50. [1] [2] Hipparchus, in the 1st century BC, introduced the magnitude scale. He allocated the first magnitude to the 20 brightest stars and the sixth magnitude to the faintest stars visible to the naked eye.
Capella was the brightest star in the night sky from 210,000 years ago to 160,000 years ago, at about −1.8 in apparent magnitude. At −1.1, Aldebaran was brightest before this period; it and Capella were situated rather close to each other in the sky and approximated boreal pole stars at the time. [35] Building J (foreground) at Monte Albán