As we spend more time in darkness, you only have to look skyward to observe planets, stars and the moon. Ever wonder why stars appear to twinkle, but planets don’t? In fact, stars are minute pinpoints of light. No matter how powerful your telescope, a star will always look like a tiny pinpoint with no discernable disk. When we look at the stars through our turbulent atmosphere, those pinpoints become distorted and thus appear  twinkle.

Planets on the other hand, appear as disks through a telescope. They have a larger apparent size and hence are not prone to having their light distorted by our atmosphere as much as stars.

Then, there is the Full Moon - visible to the naked eye in all it’s shining glory.  Look up tonight because on November 13th the Full Beaver Moon arrives at 1:17am (eastern). On the West Coast it will be on November 12th at 10:17pm. Names were given to moons by Native Americans. Some names were common to all tribes and, in other cases , different names were assigned. In November the beavers work busily getting ready for winter and the greater light helps them accomplish it. So on November 13th we observe the Full Beaver Moon.

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Stars, Planets, Full Moon, Native Americans, Beaver