Stargazing

Picture: NICK HART Drivers asked to watch out for athletes

The Seven Sisters of winter

Night sky events with Bob Mizon MBE of the Wessex Astronomical Society

An eye-catching object in the eastern evening sky in the winter months, rising higher through December into the coming year is the sparkling triangular Pleiades cluster, Lord Tennyson’s ‘fireflies tangled in a silver braid’. These Seven Sisters of Greek legend are in fact five sisters and their parents, since the two easternmost members of the group are Atlas and Pleione, father and mother of the celestial maidens. Use binoculars to find a great many more gems of this beautiful cluster. Photographs show that the group is enveloped in a shing blue hydrogen veil, a nebula illuminated by the hot young stars. It’s around 400 light years away, so as we contemplate this jewelled brooch in the sky we can marvel at the fact that the light we are seeing left it while the Pilgrim Fathers were setting up their colony in America in the 1620s. Clear skies! Wimborne Athletic Club would like to remind residents of Pamphill and Shapwick that the Wimborne 10 Road Race takes place on Sunday, November 21. Between 10.30am and lunchtime there may be some road restrictions in the area. The race is full with 500 runners listed. The race is more than 20 years old and returns after its cancellation in 2020. One feature is that finishers are rewarded with a plentiful supply of home-made cake. Race organisers hope to make a sizeable donation to the Somerset and Dorset Air Ambulance from the proceeds of the race. Wimborne Athletic Club would like to apologisefor any inconvenience.

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