Currently looking at the sky in a very bright city does not allow to see many stars. And is that the Light pollution It does not stop harming and making the observation of a good starry sky in a big city very complicated and difficult. Now that holidays are coming, many children may have the opportunity to spend some night away from the pollution of our comfortable cities full of lights, and there you can see the clear horizon and enjoy a dark night to see the stars shine in the sky.
One of the easiest constellations to find in the North Hemisphere is the corresponding to the Great Bear and specifically the one that forms a kind of spoon or saucepan. And it is that from that constellation it is very easy to find the polar Star which is in the smaller bear and that has the main characteristic that points to the geographical north. In Madrid, now that we are at home learning angles and straight lines in mathematics, the polar star forms some 40 degrees with the north horizon. So discovering the major bear and joining the points that form the final end we can reach the polar star, that is, know where the north is. And from there we can play with the family to point out, the south, the east and the west and to play how you can go to some known cities.
It is a fun exercise for children to discover the stars and their stories. Whenever I have been in the Planetarium the children are surprised and listen very carefully to the explanations while the images are projected. And there you can also learn that depending on the country or geographical area where the stars are, they do different things. For example, yes the observer is at the North Pole All stars describe circles parallel to the horizon with the polar star above their head or zenith. While yes the observer is in Ecuador, I could see that almost all the stars describe circles around the equator and I would see that all the stars come out and get on the horizon, except the Polar one that would be on the horizon. And in the case of Madrid, for example at that latitude of 40 degrees, the Polar star is fixed and what the rest of the stars do is spin around it.
So the love of Astronomy You can start with something as simple as looking for the big bear and the little bear, with their corresponding polar star, when they are little and if they want and interest, they will ask you more and more until they finally know more than us. In Madrid years ago you could see up to the Pleiades, today in Madrid you have to go more than 50 kilometers away if you want to enjoy a clear sky and be able to see images as spectacular as any of the ones that NASA offers us every day.
