The Evening Sky Map (Northern Hemisphere)

Education Fun,

Here is a link to a very useful astronomy website that lets you download for free
The Evening Sky Map (for the Northern Hemisphere) each month for you to explore,
learn, and enjoy viewing the night sky: the moon, the planets, the constellations of stars,
and deep space star clusters, galaxies, etc.

http://skymaps.com/

Find a natural safe dark place (perhaps your backyard or public park etc.) to view the night sky
with family and friends (often a local astronomy club has car-pools to drive to a safe "dark sky area" nearby your home...) with binoculars or shared telescope etc.

The Sky Map you can print for free is very helpful for locating constellations and other celestial objects to view and learn about... just remember that if you are looking at a star, you are looking at something much bigger than our sun and much much farther away: distances in outer space are measured in "light years"...

A light year is the distance light travels in one earth year (365 days)...
and light travels the fastest of most anything in the universe...
186,000 miles per second.
(There is a debate among scientists about the theoretical questions of the ultimate fastest possible speed in the universe... you would have to do a Google search to learn more about this... :-)

To give you an idea of a large distance you are familiar with,  the sun is about 93 million miles away from the earth, so that means that the light from the sun that warms your face and enters your eyes enabling you to see everyday objects and people around you etc.
...takes about 8 minutes to reach your eyes... !!!
   (8 minutes = 8 x 60 seconds = 480 seconds)


When you look up at the sky, especially at night, you are looking at VAST distances in/through/across our universe...
and that also means you are looking back in/through/across VAST time in/through/across our universe : millions of years ago...

So your view of our world, called the planet Earth, is all of a sudden ... E...X...P...A...N...D...E...D...
to something Bigger than BIG...  :-)

The sky that you take-for-granted everyday is actually the biggest "thing" in the universe...
because it is 'connected' or 'part of' the the Entire Universe...

Years ago I came to understand that:  The sky is the biggest "Yes" there is...  :-)

Astronomically... your friend,

phineas8888