"Doorway to Paradise" overhead in October

Jack Horkheimer - STAR GAZER - http://www.jackstargazer.com/scripts0SG0839.html

"Say Farewell To Summer's Cosmic Triangle

And Welcome Autumn's Cosmic Square"

Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. And as I've often reminded you, whenever the seasons change on Earth, so too do the stars change overhead, thus the phrase "the stars of the season". Now that phrase 'stars of the season' usually refers to the major stars and star groups that reach their highest position above the horizon in mid-evening, so because autumn officially began a week and a half ago on Monday September 22nd we should already see a change in the stars overhead. Let me show you.

O.K., we've got our skies set up for any night during the first two weeks of October around 10 p.m. daylight time and if you look just west of overhead you will see the 3 bright stars which make up the points of the Summer Triangle, the brightest being Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, the second brightest, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, the third brightest, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan. Now during the first week of summer, at the end of June, the Summer Triangle was just rising in the east at 10 p.m. but if you went out at 10 p.m. each successive week all summer long you would have noticed that the Summer Triangle was a little bit higher in the sky each week at 10 p.m. and by the end of August was almost directly overhead at 10 p.m.

But if you looked to the northeast at 10 p.m. at the end of August you would have also noticed that the autumn constellation Cassiopeia, a group of 5 stars which when connected by lines looks like the letter "m" or "w" on its side, was just rising. And if you looked just above and east of Cassiopeia you would have also seen 4 dimmer stars which, if you draw lines between them, make up a great rectangle or square and which is called the Autumn Square or the Great Square of Pegasus, because it is part of the huge constellation Pegasus, the Winged Horse.

[The stars in the Great Square: Scheat means "who goeth and returneth"; Markab means "returning from afar"; Algenib means "who carries" and they are all in the Pegasus (Winged Horse/the blessings quickly coming) constellation. Alpheratz means "the broken down" and is in the Andromeda (The Chained Woman/the redeemed in their bondage and affliction) constellation according to E. W. Bullinger's "The Witness of the Stars."]

Then if you went out each successive week in September at 10 p.m. you would have noticed that the Summer Triangle was slowly moving past overhead and beginning its descent toward the western horizon while the Autumn Square of Pegasus was ascending higher and higher in the east, so that by the first two weeks of October it is almost overhead at 10 p.m. instead of the triangle. And I think it is rather poetic that the 3 blazing hot stars that make up the Summer Triangle are replaced by the four much dimmer and softer stars of the Autumn Square because autumn is after all the softest and gentlest season of the year.

So some night this week and next go out and see for yourself how the heavens above have their own seasons just as our Earth has below. Look first for the Summer Triangle west of overhead beginning its descent toward the western horizon, then look for autumn's Cassiopeia, in the northeast, and finally almost overhead, autumn's Great Square which the ancient Babylonians believed was the doorway to paradise. And if, indeed, autumn is a visual paradise on Earth, how appropriate that this lovely portal to a cosmic paradise heralds in the loveliest of seasons. Keep looking up!