sky view cafe

So Megs and I were sitting in the hot tub last night looking up at the stars, and attempting to identify stars and constellations. I've not done this much at all ever. Megs has done it a bit more than me. But one kewl little web application I learned about back when I did astronomy 101 is called Sky View Cafe. It's kewl cause it will show you current night sky from anywhere on earth, with bright stars, constellations, planets, and lots of other kewl things if you want. So last night we saw Cassiopeiae, which reminded me of my good friend Matt Beasley. He used to raise and race sled dogs, and one litter he had were all named after contellations, including Cassiopeiae. Included in Cassiepeiae is the star Alpha Cassiopeiae, more popularly known as Shedir, which is from the Arabic word for breast. Shedir is 500 times brighter than Sol, although you couldn't tell it by looking at it with the naked eye in the night sky. It's 230 light years away, which means that with current technology there's no way in hell any of us are ever going to see it much closer than we currently can.