Brad Snowder @Skywise@octodon.social

There's a star in Perseus named Algol, which literally means The Ghoul but a more appropriate translation is Demon. It's not so much an eater of the dead as it is a general agent of evil. Not as aggressive as a Balrog from the 9th level, more like a clerk or an intern on the 7th.

Being the North Star is way too important for one eternal leader, so there is a consortium and they take turns. 12,000 years from now, when archaeologists are wondering how we could have missed that smart phones were plotting to overthrow us, the bright star Vega will have a go.

Now days amateur telescopes have computerized go-to slewing, GPS, auto-aligning, hot and cold running widgets, and a meter that shows how good of time you are having.

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You can see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. Start with the Great Square of Pegasus and hop towards Cassiopeia and then follow those two stars up to those other two stars and follow those up to that other star and then it's somewhere around there.

Galaxy hoppers, if you're looking for a tasty new target, consider IC-2560 in Antlia. It’s a rather elegant barred-spiral with a creamy filling and a star-forming crust.

The constellation Aquila represents Zeus' emotional support eagle. I'm imagining it wore one of those vests that let him into restaurants.

One of the cool things about star-hopping is that you can see objects and events at all different phases of development in one night. William Herschel spoke of the sky as a garden, with flowers in all the various stages of bloom.

The constellation Aquila represents Zeus' emotional support eagle. He probably wore one of those vests that let him into restaurants.

The constellation Ara represents the altar Jupiter and his siblings built to pray to each other. This was just before they killed their pappy for killing their grandpappy and swallowing most of the kids. In the end they all became planets or other conglomerates of cosmic debris.

My ideal Jeopardy categories:
1. Starlore
2. Astronomy
3. Constellations
4. Galaxies, Stars and Whatnot out there
5. Jeeps
6. Getting things from Lowes and putting them together

It's my experience that you will see roughly one fireball, also known as a bolide, for every 100 to 200 hours you spend out under the stars. Sometimes you'll hear a sonic boom. I've seen them break into parts. Sometimes it looks like they're skipping on the atmosphere like a flat rock on a pond, leaving multiple streaks.

The constellation Auriga is in the opposite direction from the galactic center. It's the galactic anti-center. If you want to visit the outer rim, head towards Auriga and just keep going.

The constellation Auriga (the charioteer) is probably named for Erichthonius. He invented the four-horse chariot. One might think you simply take a three-horse chariot and add one more horse. I mean, that's the first thing I would try.

@loke - To whom much is given, much is expected.

The Boötes void is an emptiness 250 million lightyears across. It contains maybe 60 galaxies, not many customers. Gregory Scott Alderling once observed "If the Milky Way had been in the center of the Boötes void, we wouldn't have known there were other galaxies until the 1960's."

There is a long straight trail of stars, like bread crumbs, leading from NGC-5466 in the Milky Way's halo to the galactic disk. It’s called the 45 Degree Tidal Stream and it could be the result of the cluster passing through one of our galactic neighborhoods, stealing raw material to construct new stars.

NGC-5466 is a globular cluster that has some hot young blue stars in it, which is weird for a globular. That's like a poor old homeless guy wearing a diamond necklace. Dude, did you go to Jared?

Zeus' wife Hera caught him and Callisto doing the bedspring boogie and changed Callisto into a bear, after first calling her a skank and a ho I assume. But it was all Zeus' fault. That's patriarchy for you. Anyway Zeus put Callisto into the sky where she is now the stars of Ursa Major.

HE0450-2958 is called the "naked quasar" because we can't see the galaxy hosting it. Meanwhile there is a big suspicious blob of gas nearby. The host galaxy may be hiding inside a larger nearby galaxy, thus entering an intergalactic witness protection program.