Caoimhín's Content

Time for another Irish language astronomy video! This video serves to up date the previous Irish video on the positions of the planets as well as covering in Irish the topics that were covered in English by the most recent English language videos.

Of course, we start with the planets. Saturn remains visible from sunset, as soon as the sky darkens Saturn will appear already risen in the sky. Jupiter is now appearing quite soon after sunset, by as early as half past 9 the two largest planets will be high in the sky and easy to see. This lets you compare the two largest planets visually, and see how much brighter Jupiter is.

Venus will join much later, after Saturn has set, so unfortunately we don’t get three planets all together. We do get to see the two brightest planets along with the brightest star Sirius, giving us another chance for a quick visual comparison. Venus and Jupiter will far outshine Sirius, and if you look closely you’ll see that Venus comfortably outshines Jupiter as well.

For planets, that’s it. Even the Moon is missing from the sky on Friday the 13th. Friday the 13th is a nice interesting date, but it also happens to be the night of the New Moon for October 2023. With no moon in the sky we can remove the light pollution and be sure of a perfect view of the sky. Even with human light removed from the equation, the light of the Moon can make a big difference. We take a quick look at how the Milky Way itself can be blocked out by the light of a Full Moon, while it dominates the sky if there is no moonlight.

A dark sky, free of light pollution, is necessary to see the Milky Way. The Irish name “Bóthar na Bó Finne” or “Bealach na Bó Finne” means “The Road/Path/Way of the Fair/Pale/Fine/Milking Cows”. There’s definitely a connection here, but while the Milky Way is mostly named after the milk, “Bóthar na Bó FInne” is more about the cows themselves.

Dark skies are also a great chance to look for the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. This tight cluster of stars is visible just to the left of Jupiter, and in a dark sky we really can see seven of them, if not more, with just our eyes. With a telescope the view can be amazing, thousands of stars in a tight grouping. Even just a pair of binoculars can let you see more of this open cluster.

Of course, that’s without light pollution. If we return to a light polluted city sky, your naked eye may only reveal one or two stars. Luckily, telescopes and binoculars can still work when there is light pollution, well enough to reveal a few more of the Sisters if you take a closer look.

In the last English language video we took a look at constellations, the official star-pictures in the sky, compared with asterisms, the unofficial star-shapes. Here, we start again with the Summer Triangle. It’s important to note that, despite being unofficial, the asterism of the Summer Triangle is still a reasonably well known shape, recognized by many (many might be a stretch, some at least). It isn’t just a random shape being made up on the spot. It may not be officially agreed upon, but it is well known enough as a shape to be in casual use.

The unofficial Summer Triangle is made up of many official constellations. These official images usually have Latin names as their official names and this is usually maintained in Irish. Just as Cygnus is “Cygnus the Swan” in English, it’s “Cygnus an Eala” in Irish. Of course, Cygnus is “swan” in Latin already, so many of these names are equivalent to “Swan the Swan”. I won’t go through all of them here.

It is interesting to note, that while the Romans translated some Ancient Greek names into Latin, they retained or borrowed the Ancient Greek names for some things, such as a half-man half-horse. The English centaur, Latin centaurus and Irish ceinteár all come from the Ancient Greek kentaurus. Why make up a new word when you have a premade one ready to be taken? Irish generally translates the names, and a few more examples are given.

Just like I say at the end of the video, I do hope you get a chance to see this things in the real sky, especially under a dark sky. If you get a chance to spot the Seven Sisters or Pleiades, try counting them. The more you can see, the less light pollution in your area, the fewer that are visible the more human light around you shining into the sky obscuring your view.

Thanks for reading and I hope I see you next time.