Posted on 08/01/2020 5:44:59 AM PDT by NOBO2012
I know it’s Saturday, the day normally reserved for all things feline, but it’s August 1st which means we are officially in the dog days of summer - when all manner of madness can occur.
Specific dates for the dog days vary – some believe them to be the entire month of August, in Scandinavia they run from July 22 through August 22 and the Old Farmer’s Almanac pegs them as July 3 – August 11. Most people associate them with the hottest and most humid days of summer – so miserable that it drives dogs mad. In fact it has less to do with overheated pooches and more to do with the night sky, or early morning sky to be exact. The Dog Days coincide with the early morning rising of Sirius, the Dog Star.
Sirius is part of the constellation Canis Majoris - the “Greater Dog” – from which Sirius gets its official name, Alpha Canis Majoris.
So if you can’t sleep due to the heat, humidity or events of the day you can always get up and watch the Dog star rise. And if you can pick out the entire constellation, well good on you. I will confess, I’ve never been very good at picking the constellations out of a sea of stars.
Lovely, but I’m not spotting Spot
Sirius, being the brightest star in the sky, is easy to spot but it’s accompanying canine frame, well not so much, not for me anyway.
But then a real dog is a lot more fun anyway.
Jim Daly Painting
Of course they’ll expect to take turns.
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
“Hey, my turn Buddy. They don’t call them the dog days for nothing.”
What sky is the star located?
It was a Florida man who once realised that a compressed air could be used to create cool air.
Then later innovations in the USA led to the creation of the most widely used and important building cooling system to have ever been invented.
USA has changed the world in this one aspect alone.
Actually, Sirius is emerging from behind the Sun right now. In one week it will be visible at many latitudes, given good viewing conditions. The earliest I have spotted Sirius is August 7.
Southern, but rising very much at the same time as the Sun, so it will tough to spot for a couple of weeks. Rising a bit earlier every day, so in a month it should be about 15 degrees up in the sky at dawn.
Thanks. I’ll be looking for it in south TX.
That is so cool! POTUS shadow projecting pup!
Was that Carrier?
I merely thought the dog days were towards the end of the summer when it was exceedingly hot and dry day in and day out....ready for fall to arrive...
aka - I also call this time of year, the Scorpion Nights of Summer.
Start looking for Orion rising in the east just before sunrise. A take off of Groundhog Day. When you finally see Orion before sunrise, there are 6 more weeks of summer :=)
Funny shadow!
The invention of air conditioning was the worst thing to ever happen to Florida
I was here before a/c. It brought us nothing but a bunch of Yankees.
Makes sense to me. We have relatives in Florida; we might move down by them to get away from the liberal lunatics that have invaded our area over the past 50 years. We probably wouldn’t move to Florida without A/C.
You’re welcome, but I should have said it’ll be 30 degrees above the horizon at dawn in a month. Every month the earth moves 30 degrees around the Sun. In South Texas, your earliest chance to spot it is about 2 weeks. With an excellent view — no ground clutter all the way down to the SE horizon, and no clouds or haze at all — you might spot it 20-30 minutes before dawn as early as August 7 or 8, if you know EXACTLY where to look. The ancient Egyptians made a huge deal of the heliacal rising of Sirius, because it heralded the annual Nile floods that made life possible in those parts. You’ll understand me when I say that in South Louisiana I greet it as the sign that summer is half over.
I never associated the “dog days of summer” with astronomy...
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