The Lion’s Heart and the Dog Star
Around January to April, I have been observing and taking photos of Regulus and Sirius aside from the Ursa Major family (here) along with Arcturus and Spica (here) . The two bright bluish-white stars caught my attention when I pointed my telescope from eastern to the western skies.
Looking at the western side made it very difficult to spot the other stars since my house has been standing there for more than three decades. Instead, I managed to step out of my house and brought my telescope on the driveway and sidewalk, avoiding the tall bright street lamp. I was able to take photos of stars and Jupiter.
Still, we need to focus our eyes to the stars regardless of any distractions. Let’s have a quick tour of the two stars.
ALPHA LEONIS, aka, ‘Regulus’
On this picture, this was my first observation of the Lion’s Heart on the 3rd of February in this year along with the Moon and Jupiter. Regulus appeared to be very bright and slightly elongated, but there was a smaller odd-looking white dot close to it. Possibly, it was too wobbly to take a photo at that time, but I was able to capture the star.
This bluish-white star hails from the Leo Constellation which it is 79 light-years away from our Solar system. It appears to be a single, but it turns out to be a quadruple star system. From this image, I’ve only taken Regulus A with an apparent magnitude of 1.40 which was the one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Its name means, ‘Prince’ or ‘Little King’ in Latin.
From April up to this month, I was able to look at Regulus using my 12.5 mm and 30 mm eyepiece which I got intrigued with the Regulus Prophecy in Easter from Tiago of Dobsonian Power. He monitored this star and mentioned of Mr. Chris Bledsloe’s encounter of the mysterious lady. According to Mr. Bledsloe, there was a revelation from her that the orbs would appear when Regulus becomes red at the top of the Sphinx.
With that, I spent monitoring the star in weeks even it was too difficult for me to position my telescope at the top. As a conclusion, it never became red, but it remained blue as it was.
And Tiago was indeed right as he also observed. It didn’t turn into red.
We are not even sure if the Regulus prophecy would come into fruition in the near future. For me, I grew skeptical from this. I would rather monitor the skies whether it’s under normal and natural or extraordinary anomalous incidents either through scientific data and evidence or biblically inspired. Only our Greatest Cosmic Creator and Supreme Being could naturally control our environment and tell.
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ALPHA CANIS MAJOR, aka, ‘Sirius’
Around February of this year, I was able to take a picture of this star around the Canis Major constellation. For me, it looked like a radiant bluish-white orb in the evening sky which I was amazed to see it.
It’s another brightest star which its name was derived from Greek, ‘Seirios’ meaning ‘glowing’ or ‘scorching’. It is actually a binary system consisting of Sirius A and B. What you’re seeing now from this image is Sirius A with an apparent magnitude of -1.46. I couldn’t spot Sirius B which it was very faint. These two dog star twins orbit every 50 years, since their distances vary from 8.2 to 31.5 astronomical units.
From my first article (here), I could easily spot Sirius using my refractor telescope. It could be also seen in the naked eye.
Very interestingly, that one of the story time part from my Kid’s ESL lesson materials, this star was mentioned from the fictional characters.
In Greek and Egyptian mythology, Sirius the ‘Dog Star’ was responsible for the Nile river flooding in Egypt and the scorching ‘dog days’ of summer in Greece. It truly makes sense that the characters from this comic take its reference from.
The last time I was able to track this dog star from my telescope was on the 23rd of March. Sirius was positioned on the western skies which I took photos for the last time. Indeed, it was a very radiant bluish-white object. This star belongs to the Winter Triangle from December to March. Sirius runs along with Betelgeuse from Orion constellation and Canis Minor constellation.
It was fascinating to see these blue stars while they lasted for some time. As the Great Matsuo Bashō wrote:
“ Even the stars
in their millions
are passing through. “
