Sky Gazing

Marathon, FL
No LL

There is a particularly beautiful comet right now. It is named Lulin and it is visible right now in the vicinity of Saturn. I tried to see it last night but, alas, there is too much light pollution in this harbor.

On another star gazing subject, when we sailed down here from Fort Meyers last January I saw an unexpected sight. As the gale blew and as I struggled to steer, I saw the Southern Cross unmistakably sitting low in the southern sky. I had always thought that the Southern Cross was not visible from the northern hemisphere. However, the stars and the constellation were so prominent that it could hardly be anything else.

To double check I used Stellarium to verify it. I started Stellarium and then then I set the time, date, latitude and longitude to correspond to the view I just described. Sure enough, there it was, the constellation Crux. See the screen shot below. Click to see it full size.