Starry, starry night

Before meeting up with some friends for pub quiz last night I took the dogs out around 9 PM and found myself staring up at the sky. The moon was a perfect crescent, but actually seemed to have a nose like those pictures from children's books you're probably familiar with. Above my house was Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, and because I live in an area with little light pollution, the rest of the stars could be clearly seen on the night sky. My neighbor and I noticed this last Friday as we were having dinner and a postprandial chai tea latte (decaf by Celestial Seasonings with almond milk) on my back patio. All you have to do is look up and all the celestial bodies are there sparkling like diamonds. When I got back home around midnight and took the dogs out again, the moon had disappeared, while Ursa Major had slipped beyond the horizon and been replaced by a host of other constellations that I could not identify. What did stand out was what I thought to be a particularly bright star that could be seen when I stood in front of my house. Curious to find out more, I got online and looked up a star map to figure out what I was seeing at that very hour. The bright "star" turned out to be Jupiter, which by this morning had moved to behind my house, but was still clearly visible as the brightest object in the sky. According to the map, Uranus and Jupiter are almost perfectly aligned in their orbits at the moment, though Jupiter is so bright that it seems to block out Uranus. Currently the September sky above where I live is full of the "famous" constellations around midnight. The ever-familiar Orion is currently out in the early morning hours, having encountered him between 5 and 6 every morning this past week. It's nearing 6 a.m. now and daylight is slowly slipping up along the horizon. If you're curious about what can be found in your night sky, have a look here http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/cities.html. Just pick the city closest to you to view your regional map.