THE SKY GUY: Sky poetry

A man looks looks at the starry sky.

SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — Hi sky colleagues.

I have written in the Journal Pioneer for some years. I thought it would be worthwhile to look at a couple of earlier articles we have done.

I teach community school in two different courses in Summerside, although it may not happen for coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) reasons this year. In my lessons, I always begin each night with a poem that relates to astronomy.

This month, I will pick some of these, give you a beginning line, and the author, and if you are interested, you can look it up.

Astronomy is not all science and "looking". Much literature, and in particular, poetry, has been written about the sky and its contents.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “Follow wise Orion ‘til you waste your eye...”

Robert Frost in Star Splitter also speaks of Orion. “You know Orion always comes up sideways, throwing a leg up over our fence of Mountains...”

Lord Byron pondered, “When the moon is on the wave and the glow-worm in the grass, and the meteor on the grave...”

Robert Southey wrote, “He ran against a shooting star, so fast for fear did he sail, and he singed the Beard of the Bishop against a comet’s tail...”

Stewart Atkinson whispered - "Sleep now, we have come to heal you, when you wake, your weary eyes will be bright again," as astronauts rose to repair Hubble.

Kathleen Gillum wrote - "The jewel box of the universe is scattered in the sky".

Robert Louis Stevenson mesmerized me as he said, "But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes, and the stars going round in my head".

Now, I want to add a local one,

"It's the hush that comes with the evening,

When sounds can be heard from afar,

As the shadows of nighttime come closer,

I'm in need of a twinkling star".

This was written by Garnet Turner who passed away several years ago. He was a long time resident of Kensington.

And finally, John Denver in Rocky Mountain High, talking about a bright meteor, sang “It’s a Colorado Rocky Mountain high, I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky...”

So, what is in the sky this month?

Planets first

In the night, Venus. It’s still great to see, but it does dip heavily until by month’s end, it is only three degrees above the horizon. It will pass between our earth and the sun during June and will be invisible to us. As May passes, it also becomes less brilliant.

Mercury now appears on the scene from about May 11th. It is in the west-northwest, well below Venus, but it’s climbing. On May 21, they are closest together with Mercury on the lower left and dimmer than Venus. Mercury is furthest from the sun (greatest elongation) actually, on June 4.

Now the morning

We still have Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. If we look one hour before sunrise, we will see that Mars has now separated itself from the other two, lying, further in the south-southeast, while Saturn and Jupiter are much closed together, lying between south-southeast and southeast.

One comet is worth mentioning, Comet T2 for short. It is currently a binocular object and could get a little brighter. If you want to locate T2, there is a very good diagram on page 48 of the May issue of Sky & Telescope.