Stuff I've learned...Astronomy

When I was in college I had a beau named Chris Boynton. He loved Astronomy and introduced me to Sky and Telescope Magazine . It was way over my head then and it's way over my head now. Even so the home page does point out something of interest in the night's sky. In every print issue the center spread is a star chart for that month.

25 years later I was going to Mexico with another man, David Wilder who lived in California and I bought a copy of Sky and Telescope to take with me for the star chart.

From that point on I learned many nifto Astronomy facts. Here's one:

A star chart shows the stars in the night sky at 9-ish pm for a certain date. The chart is an exact representation of "your" sky regardless of what longitude you are. But North to South -Latitude-makes a difference. Most "regular" star charts are made for the point of view of someone at 40 degrees North latitude. Austin, Miami, Cairo are all at 30 degrees. So, if you are at 30 degrees n latitude and you look at a star chart made for 40 degrees it will not perfectly represent what you can see.

Question is, "How's it different?"

So that's a nifto Astronomy fact with a question at the end.

There are many great nifto facts, this is just one.