01 01/09
02:57

Orion in the sky

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Orion 002

First post of 2009! Happy new year! The year passed over with an extremely clear night sky. Every star was out. If you stare long enough, you’ll see stars you never knew were there! This is the Orion constellation. Can be seen all over the world. So you probably would have seen it if you looked up into the sky at night. I didn’t realize Gemini was so close to Orion until I saw them tonight! First new experience of 2009. I saw my own star sign!

I also saw something else tonight. As I was trying to take photo of Orion, an extremely clear shooting star appeared near the leftmost star in Orion’s belt. A white dot appeared and moved towards the left. As it moved, its head turned a bright orange and it left a streak of white in its path. Everything was over in 2-3 seconds. Awesome! I was taken aback. Was just standing there with my jaw hanging. Took my brain a few seconds to fire off the “make a wish stupid” signal. I wished for a steadfast new year.

It just so happened that my finger was still on the shutter when the shooting star passed (camera was on bulb). If you check the original size of this photo at my flickr account, you can see a very faint white line on the left. Check it out and tell me if you see it. It’s very faint though…

Orion 001

Have you gazed at the stars lately?

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  • http://panther.clanbluepanthers.org/ Panther

    Lucky you, being able to see a shooting star on first day of the New Year. I doubt I can ever see constellations here, too much light and air pollution and too few places to go with dark areas.

    Panther´s last blog post..The First of 2009

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    Panther Reply:
    January 1st, 2009 at 5:59 am

    Oops I forgot to add in, I saw the faint white light lol. Need to look for it a little.

    Panther´s last blog post..The First of 2009

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    k Reply:
    January 1st, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    try staring into the night sky. your eyes will adjust themselves. ^^. i’m sure you should be able to see Orion’s belt.

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  • http://www.narrativedisorder.com Danielle

    Happy New Year Ken! We, too, noticed that the stars were out as we left for the Shrine around 10:30 pm. We def stopped and gazed for a while because it is something we really miss about living in Australia – even though we live in cities as big as Nagoya there are sooooo many more stars in the sky. It was lovely to be able to see more than just the Evening star and the moon for a change!

    Danielle´s last blog post..Warm Wishes to You and Yours :)

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    k Reply:
    January 1st, 2009 at 11:58 pm

    Happy New Year Danielle! Is it possible to see the Southern Cross here in Japan? I don’t remember when, but I have this memory of having seen it in the Japanese sky.

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  • http://kazenomise.net/ Kazearashi

    My camera cannot take a picture of night sky… ;_; All will be black… lol… dSLR want D=

    I rarely see stars in SG, but in Indonesia, especially in rural areas, you can see a LOT of them clearly…

    Kazearashi´s last blog post..Selamat Tahun Baru 2009!!

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