The Sky This Month
Welcome to our night-time sky.
Please enjoy this monthʼs tidbits of
knowledge. We are lucky to live in
a dark-sky area where the heavens
can shine through. I hope you enjoy
the sky and perhaps learn a thing or
two. Happy star gazing!
Orionʼs Coming – Here is a sight
for all of you stay-up-laters. The
Orionid meteor shower peaks on the morning of October
20. Orion will rise in the east around 11pm and lots of
meteors will be shooting out of Orionʼs head. If all goes
to plan, you might see 10-15 meteors per hour. These
dust specs are from the tail of Halleyʼs Comet and will
be hitting the atmosphere at 147,000 miles per hour. The
bonus this year is that the moon is new (i.e., dark), so the
sky will be nice and dark. Actually, you can watch the
meteor shower over several nights before and after the
20th. Since comets have long tails, the debris field is quite
large. You can also watch into the morning hours when
Orion will be more overhead.
Sky Pyramids – Did you know that the ancient pyra-
mids in Giza, Egypt may have a direct link to the stars?
6
October 2017 pccnews
A man named Robert Bauval who was born in Alex-
andria, Egypt, developed the idea. One night in 1983,
while working in Saudi Arabia, he took his family and
a friendʼs family up into the sand dunes of the Arabian
Desert for a camping expedition. His friend pointed out
Orion, and mentioned that Alnitak, the smaller more
easterly of the stars making up Orionʼs belt was offset
slightly from the others. Bauval knew that the smallest
pyramid in Giza was also slightly offset from the others.
He made a connection between the layout of the three
main stars in Orionʼs belt and the layout of the three
main pyramids in the Giza. Bauval compared the layout
of the pyramids and the Nile as compared to Orion and
the Milky Way. Their positions were a close match, but
not the revelation that he expected.
Bauval then realized that the Earth changes its orienta-
tion to the stars over time. By turning the clock back to
10,450 B.C., Bauval found a near exact match. The pyra-
mids lined up exactly with Orionʼs belt and the Nile lined
up exactly with the Milky Way. You can catch a view of
Orion in the eastern sky in the late evening.
— Brian Biggs
Amateur Astronomer