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Brisbane Lights Empty Brisbane Lights

Post  Harry Hamill Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:20 am

From my blog 'Southern Skies', entry at Brisbane, Wednesday 7th November.....
Tuesday evening is mainly overcast. We have dinner in an Indian restaurant in nearby Rosalie after a walk through the scented night. Here there is a group of popular and lively eateries. Cup Day revellers are in evidence among the clientele. The meal is more than adequate and plentiful.
Late on I take a look through the balcony door and see a bright star high in the South East. I guess that it is Canopus. This is the first time in my life that I have seen the second brightest star in the entire sky.
We take a late stroll through the brightly lit streets. Only a few of the brighter stars are visible through the glare. In the north is an inverted view of Orion, Taurus, Aries and Pegasus. It is still warm and Sirius is very high and bright. This is not its usual sparkling, frosty and wintry persona. Fomalhaut, which I am so used to seeing lying on the bottom of its aquarium tank on the southern horizon of an autumn evening, is high up in the South West.
Turning again to the south, Achernar is high in front of us and we can identify the Tucan and the Peacock from the southern aviary. We try to organise the few remaining available stars into a southern cross. It is not convincing. Later I realise that the Cross has not risen yet. I've been using SkySafari to familiarise myself with the southern sky. I have the location set at Christchurch, NZ where the Cross is circumpolar. In Brisbane at 23 degrees South, the cross will not rise for another hour or two.
It will be a while before I'm as comfortable with this view of the sky as I am with the one where the Plough and Cassiopeia are permanent residents. Here, they are nowhere to be seen.


Last edited by Harry Hamill on Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:36 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Uninformative title)

Harry Hamill

Posts : 16
Join date : 2012-11-08

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