The maldivian sky in January-February-March

Find a dark spot on the beach and let your eyes adjust to the dark: it takes about 20 minutes. If you need some light, use red light only: it will not spoil your night vision.
A cheap red LED bicycle light is perfect.

At first, you will be amazed by the glowing band stretching across the whole sky: it looks like a trail of clouds, but it is actually the light of billions and billions of faint stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
Such a view is very rare in industrialized regions: to admire it you would have to climb an isolated mountain, in the freezing cold. Part of the magic of the Maldives is that you can enjoy a magnificent sky from a warm beach. What more could you ask for?

First of all, hold the sky map above your head and orient it so that it matches the sky. To do this, you need to find the cardinal points. The Sun sets in the west, so if you face that direction, north is on your right, south on your left and east behind you.

As time goes by, you will notice that the stars… move! They slowly travel from east to west, just like the Sun. So our sky map is only valid for a limited time. To see what the sky looks like at any other time, you need planetarium software, such as the excellent Stellarium.
Many mobile apps can show you the night sky according to where you point your phone: a wonderful teaching tool.

Now look north: slightly to your right you will see the famous Big Dipper (also known as the Plough or the Great Bear). Extend the line through the two stars at the front of its bowl, the Pointers, about five times their distance: you will reach an isolated star, the famous North Star.
Unfortunately, it is not always visible, as it is often hidden by clouds low on the horizon.
The whole sky rotates around the North Star. In the Maldives, as we have seen, the celestial sphere is tipped onto its side, and all the stars rise and set perpendicular to the horizon.
This also explains the motion of the Sun we described earlier.

Now let’s look at the beautiful constellation of Orion, easily recognized by three aligned, nearly identical stars. Near the equator it passes right overhead, and it is the key to finding all the other winter constellations.
But first, let’s take a closer look at its stars: they are well worth it.

The ancient Greeks pictured this constellation as the giant hunter Orion, holding a club in his right hand and a shield in his left (or, in other versions, freshly caught prey).
The brightest star is Rigel, his left foot. It is an extremely luminous star, about 100,000 times brighter than our Sun, but also very far away: about 860 light-years. The second star is Betelgeuse, from an Arabic name often translated as “the giant’s shoulder”. It is clearly red, which reveals its low surface temperature: “just” 3,500 K. Rigel, by contrast, is blue-white because of its temperature of over 10,000 K. Hotter still, the blue stars of Orion’s Belt reach 25,000–30,000 K!
Orion’s Sword contains the most beautiful nebula in the whole sky: the Great Orion Nebula, visible even through binoculars. But it is through a telescope that the view becomes magnificent: four newborn stars, forming the Trapezium, light up the nebula and make its gas glow in silky streaks.

Extending Orion’s Belt to the left, we reach the brightest star in the whole sky: Sirius. It is not actually a particularly powerful star: it is only about 25 times as luminous as our Sun. It looks so bright simply because it is close: at 8.6 light-years, it is one of our nearest neighbors.
If we could swap Sirius and Rigel, the light of Rigel would brighten our nights so much that we could almost read a book by it!
Sirius is the main star of Canis Major, the Great Dog. Another star, Procyon, forms an almost perfect equilateral triangle with Sirius and Betelgeuse; it is the main star of Canis Minor, the Little Dog. Naturally, both dogs were imagined helping Orion in his hunt.

If instead we extend Orion’s Belt to the right, we reach a red star: Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, the Bull. Going further, we find the beautiful star cluster of the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters: with the naked eye you should be able to count six or seven stars. Through binoculars many more appear, in an unforgettable view.

If we draw a line from Rigel to Betelgeuse and keep going, we reach Gemini, the Twins, marked by two nearly identical stars, Castor and Pollux.
Castor is a beautiful multiple star with six components, although only three can be seen through a telescope. Pollux, on the other hand, is known for its planet, discovered in 2006, which has at least twice the mass of Jupiter.

Above Orion is the bright yellow star Capella, the brightest star in Auriga, the Charioteer.
Looking east, we can see the large constellation of Leo, the Lion, rising… almost vertically. After all, we are near the equator!

So far we have looked at stars and constellations familiar to European observers.
Now it is time to discover a part of the sky, south of Canis Major, that we can never see from Europe, because it always stays below the horizon.
Here in the Maldives we can admire some of the most beautiful stars, clusters and constellations in the whole sky.

This region is dominated by the huge constellation of the ship Argo, so large that in the 18th century it was split into three separate constellations: Puppis (the Stern), Carina (the Keel) and Vela (the Sails).
Carina contains the second brightest star in the sky: Canopus.
Between Vela and Carina there is a group of four stars that looks very much like the Southern Cross. Indeed, it is often called “the False Cross”.

In this season the real Southern Cross rises late in the evening: it is wise to wait a few hours, until it shines well above the haze of the horizon. Its brightest star, Acrux, is blue-white; the star at the top of the cross, Gacrux, is the one that is clearly red. Next to the star on the left arm of the cross is a beautiful star cluster, so sparkling that it is nicknamed “the Jewel Box”; it is already lovely in binoculars.

Halfway between the true and the False Cross lies a truly remarkable part of the sky. It hosts the largest nebula visible to the naked eye: the Carina Nebula.

Through a telescope, the dark “Keyhole” Nebula is clearly visible, named after its shape. Right next to it is a reddish star that looks insignificant. Yet it is one of the most massive stars known in our Galaxy: in 1843 it suddenly flared up, becoming almost as bright as Sirius! Its name is Eta Carinae, and it is destined to explode as a supernova. It is already in the last stages of its life: it could explode tonight, next month or in a thousand years. Nobody knows when.

Easily seen with the naked eye

Sirius	CMa	The brightest star in the sky, also known as the Dog Star. “Only” 8.6 light-years (ly) away.
Procyon	CMi	From the Greek “before the dog”, because it rises just before Sirius. 11.4 ly away.
Canopus	Car	The second brightest star in the sky, about 10,000 times more luminous than our Sun. 310 ly away.
β Centauri	Cen	Together with Alpha Centauri, it forms the “Pointers” to the Southern Cross. About 390 ly away.
α Centauri	Cen	The nearest star system: “only” 4.4 ly away. Through a telescope it is a bright double star, with an orbital period of about 80 years.
Castor	Gem	A multiple star with six members, three of them visible through a telescope. 51 ly away.
Pollux	Gem	Orbited by a planet at least twice as massive as Jupiter. 34 ly away.
Regulus	Leo	The main star of Leo, a blue-white multiple star. 79 ly away.
Rigel	Ori	Orion’s brightest star: a blue supergiant with a faint companion. About 860 ly away.
Betelgeuse	Ori	One of the largest red supergiants known: its diameter is roughly 700–1,000 times that of our Sun. About 550 ly away.
Pleiades	Tau	The Seven Sisters. Binoculars reveal many more stars. About 440 ly away.
Hyades	Tau	A sparse V-shaped cluster around Aldebaran (which does not belong to it). 153 ly away.
Aldebaran	Tau	The main star of Taurus, distinctly reddish. 65 ly away.

Easily seen with binoculars

Almost every stargazer starts out with binoculars. As they “grow up”, they buy bigger and bigger telescopes. Yet some observers keep preferring binoculars for the uniqueness of the view, for a simple reason: they are the only instrument we can use with both eyes. Binocular vision helps us perceive faint, low-contrast detail and is extremely relaxing.
Binoculars as small as 8×40 (8 is the magnification, 40 the diameter of the front lenses in millimeters) are enough to wander among the stars and nebulae of the Maldivian sky.
Naturally, bigger binoculars gather more light, but they soon become too heavy to hold by hand.

M44	Cnc	The Beehive Cluster, visible to the naked eye. Dist. 580 ly.
NGC 2516	Car	A spectacular open cluster of about 100 stars, spanning half a degree. Dist. 1,300 ly.
NGC 3293	Car	A rich cluster surrounded by faint nebulosity. Dist. 8,000 ly.
IC 2602	Car	The Southern Pleiades, a bright cluster twice the size of the full Moon. Dist. 480 ly.
NGC 3372	Car	The huge nebula around Eta Carinae, a star on the verge of exploding. Dist. 7,500 ly.
ω Centauri	Cen	The largest globular cluster in our Galaxy, with some 10 million stars! Dist. 17,000 ly.
NGC 4755	Cru	The Jewel Box: a beautiful cluster with vivid colors. Dist. 6,400 ly.
LMC	Dor	The Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy of our Milky Way. Dist. 160,000 ly.
M42	Ori	The magnificent Orion Nebula, beautiful both in binoculars and through a telescope. Dist. 1,350 ly.
SMC	Tuc	The Small Magellanic Cloud, another companion galaxy. Dist. 200,000 ly.

Telescope objects

The Maldivian sky is already beautiful to the naked eye. With binoculars, it becomes astonishing. If you want to reach nirvana, a good telescope is what it takes.

M67	Cnc	More than 500 stars; one of the oldest open clusters known. Dist. 2,800 ly.
NGC 3918	Cen	The Blue Planetary: through a telescope it appears as a small blue disk.
NGC 2070	Dor	The Tarantula Nebula, a very bright star-forming region within the Large Magellanic Cloud.
θ Eridani	Eri	A striking blue-white double star, magnitudes 3.2 and 4.3. Visible with a small telescope.
NGC 3242	Hya	The “Ghost of Jupiter”: a bright blue disk with a faint central star. Dist. about 1,400 ly (estimates vary).
β Monocerotis	Mon	A beautiful triple star.
NGC 2264	Mon	The Christmas Tree Cluster, associated with the Cone Nebula. Dist. 2,500 ly.
σ Orionis	Ori	A superb multiple star. The triple star Struve 761 is in the same field.
κ Puppis	Pup	Two nearly identical blue-white stars.
M1	Tau	The Crab Nebula: the remnant of a supernova that exploded in 1054. Dist. 6,500 ly.
NGC 3132	Vel	One of the brightest planetary nebulae, with a faint central star. Dist. 2,500 ly.

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