Deneb

It preserves a person describing what the lights seem to do.

Ian proposes bright stars for some of those observations, like Sirius in the southern sky, with Vega and Deneb to the north.

To check the broad idea, evidentiary calculated where those stars would have been from the Woodbridge area in the early hours of December 28th.

Around four in the morning, Sirius was low in the southwest.

Deneb and Vega were low to the north and northeast.

That broadly fits the arrangement of lights described in Halt's memo.

Our calculation puts Sirius about 5 degrees above the horizon, with Deneb and Vega at about 10 and 14 degrees.

You'll find the fuller results and their limits in the show notes.

Vega, at lower right, is the brightest.

Deneb is above it, by the width of two or three fists held at arm's length, and Altair is farther off to Vega's left.

I suppose Summer Triangle is something of a misnomer, because you'll be able to see this striking trio well into December.

Now turn to your left and draw an imaginary line starting at Vega, downward through Altair, to near the southern horizon.

To the queen's right, by about two fists, is Andromeda.

Go a little farther to the right, and closer to overhead, to spot the great square of the constellation Pegasus, the winged horse.

in some tellings of andromeda's rescue perseus is riding pegasus and the dim stars of cetus the sea monster are three or four fists below the great square It might not be obvious, but the bright stars in this part of the sky, starting with Deneb high up and then down through Cassiopeia and Perseus and ending with the brilliant star Capella low in the northeast, all lie along the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy.

If you can get out under a really dark sky this month, this association will become obvious to you.

Some of the character names are... from the bible like thaddeus and um nahum i think is also yeah he's a minor prophet um now part of that is just like the new england sort of you know that's what they named people but um uh like zenas gardner his oldest nahum's oldest son that means uh zeus giving right um or it's related to xenia hospitality and there are a few scenes where like um as nahum's going crazy um he thinks zenas is still alive right um and he's like oh you know be hospitable to our guest right put more fire on the put more wood on the fire right so like i think lovecraft kind of is playing around with these with these names which i always appreciate um but there's another part where another um shakespeare reference when he says that uh nahum was ill starred right and so that's like it's a reference to romeo and juliet right so there he's ill starred like it's uh And then another reference to stars, too, when the color, when the creature flies into the sky, it goes back to the Cygnus constellation, which is the swan.

And then he mentioned Cygnus and Deneb.

And Deneb is the, I looked this up yesterday.

So Deneb is the brightest star in that constellation, in the Cygnus constellation.

And it's the 13th brightest in the entire sky.

And it's the tail of the swan, but it's also the head of the northern cross.

So you can see, so there's, this is the summer triangle.

So there's Vega, there's Deneb.

So it's in between Lyra and Cygnus.

This patch of sky we know of thousands of planets.

The heavens above, and in this case very high above, host several noteworthy stars and constellations which we've highlighted this week.

Below the star Deneb, directly overhead at 10 minutes of 8:00 this evening, we outlined the king and queen yesterday, Cepheus and Cassiopeia by name, high in the north and northeast.

The queen is the brighter, easier to recognize of the two, and can be found by using the outer edge of the Big Dipper's bowl, extending that line almost straight up to find the North Star halfway up in the north, then continue on that line high in the northeast where the queen's zigzag or W-shaped pattern appears similar in brightness to the Big Dipper.

As the queen's throne tipping upside down, you'll see its tall back as an extension to the lower line on the W.

This week's highlights shine high overhead, and for the sake of your neck, you'll want to view the top of the skies from a more relaxed, perhaps reclining position, and dressed warmly for our cool evenings.

Just minutes before 8:00, our focal point, the star Deneb, sits exactly at the zenith, currently the highest star in the Summer Triangle, itself quite high in the southwest.

Almost directly below Deneb in the north, but quite high, look for a square of slightly brighter stars connected to a triangle of slightly brighter stars just below it.

It appears as an upside-down house or perhaps an ice cream cone, though this celestial figure represents King Cepheus, the square perhaps his head, and the triangle as his crown.

Now looking to his lower right, a W or zigzag pattern of stars marks his partner, the queen, Cassiopeia.

Now, each board's named after a star.

You have the Neos, you have the Deneb, you have the Rigel, the Mira, you have the Antares, the Arcturus, and Sirius.

Shocker, they have Sirius in there.

And I'll talk about Sirius in conjunction with these extraterrestrials that David Myatt talks about who help, quote-unquote, "create mankind." Listen, go back and listen to the episode that I just did on Sirius.