My son teaches me a thing or two (or three) about the bright stars in the constellations.
Last night my son and I went out to pry some more constellations from the sky. He checks the constellations that are up with his planisphere and draws them to learn their exact shape and extent in the sky. Then he likes to go out and find them on cloudless nights. He is hoping to see every constellation that is visible from his latitude, and he is well on his way.
We arrived home from a family function last night a little after dark and went straight from the car in the garage out to the driveway to pick out any constellations we could discern using our memories of them alone. We started with the brightest stars plus Jupiter, and after spotting Arcturus in Bootes I looked upward for Hercules. I asked my son if he had found him yet, but he was looking just to the side of it, with his finger pointing out a star.
"Mommy, can you see the star I am pointing at?" I bent down until I was lined up with his finger and he kept talking. "I think that is Gemma, the brightest star in the Northern Crown [Corona Borealis]."
Wow, I was impressed. I knew he knew the brightest stars in the sky, but I didn't realize he also knew some of the brightest stars in constellations that overall weren't that bright. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that it didn't take him long to learn something that I didn't even know. His free time is spent reading astronomy books while mine is spent making grocery lists. But still, he's only five.
We settled down on the pavement to search for more landmarks in the sky. We pointed out the Big Dipper and then used the end two stars in the bowl to find the North Star, Polaris. I could easily see the two brighter stars in the bowl of the Little Dipper, so I asked my son if he could see them too, both as a test of his dark adaptation and also to make sure he knew just where all of Ursa Minor lies. Not only did he pick them out immediately, he said, "The brightest one at the bottom there is Kochab."
Okay, so that's the second time in the last five minutes that he has known more than I have about something in the sky.
We continued to scan the sky, this time trying to see if the entire snaking form of Draco was visible between the Dippers. We traced its length and then found its boxy head. At which point, my son immediately piped back up with, "The brightest star in Draco is named Eltanin and it is in the head of the dragon." Yet another bright star I did not have memorized. He went on to tell me about Thuban and its occasional role as the North Star every thousand-some years. This I did know, but I did not know exactly which star it was. Apparently my son did. He has the map of the constellations and stars written so perfectly in his head that it doesn't matter if it's his first time seeing a constellation, he will recognize it and be able to tell you which star is which.
After touring that region of the sky we turned around so that I could point out my favorite constellation to him, Delphinus the Dolphin. I had tried to show him it before, because it is right along one of the edges of the Summer Triangle, one of his favorite targets, but for some reason he was never able to make it out. Tonight, though, we had success. I knew he saw it when he reported that he could see the tail star and three of the stars in the body but he was having trouble seeing the fourth star in the body that was on the bottom. He painted a perfect picture of it. Now he was going to head back inside and paint a literal picture of it, with his Roseart markers and whatever scrap paper was lefting sitting on the table today.
