As you can see by this week's sky map, the mighty winter constellation of Orion, the hunter, is about to leave our night sky, and he won't be back for another six months. By the time the sky is dark, Orion is already setting in the west, so it's time to take one last look at this ruler of the winter sky before he's gone.

In the shoulder of Orion the giant of all red giant stars, the bright orange Betelgeuse, which, if it replaced the Sun at the centre of our solar system, would completely engulf Earth and the rest of the inner planets, and its surface would be way out past the orbit of Jupiter. In the foot of Orion the brilliant blue/white Rigel, one of the hottest, brightest young stars in our sky, 40,000 times brighter than our Sun!

Hanging from Orion's three star belt, is his dagger, containing the most accessible nebula in the sky. Most nebulae are elusive, and hard to see, requiring filters and special optics, but the Great Orion Nebula is easily visible in even the most modest backyard scopes, and is a sight you don't soon forget.

Orion also takes his entourage with him when he leaves. Lepus, the hare, and his two hunting dogs, Canis Major, (containing Sirius, the brightest star in the sky), and little Canis Minor, all follow Orion into the horizon. And Orion exits stage right just in time, as Orion's bane, Scorpius, the scorpion, enters stage left, the last player in the Orion story. The god Apollo, not happy about Orion dating his sister, the huntress Diana, sent the scorpion to kill Orion. But Jupiter (Zeus), the king of the gods, favoured Orion, and made sure the scorpion didn't rise until Orion set, and therefore could not harm him.

So, although we will miss the sight of the mighty Orion in our sky for the next six months, the good news is that there are some equally awesome constellations rising in the east to take his place. The fabled Hercules, containg the stunning globular cluster M13. The great swooping summer birds of the Milky Way: Cygnus, the swan, and Aquila, the eagle, followed by all the members of the famous Andromeda, story. And lastly, probably the most significant object in the night sky, our sister galaxy, M31, also known as the Andromeda galaxy. It is huge, and overwhelming, and at a distance of 2.5 million light years, the most distant object visible to the naked eye.

Orion Is The Turtle

I teach English classes to college students in Mexico and I have been over and over with them the basic questions that come about when greeting or meeting someone from another place or culture for the first time. One of the first and most basic of these questions is, ‘Where were you born?’ Lately there have occurred to me, while I have been gazing up at the night sky, a few similar questions, ‘Where was the universe born?’, ‘Where was the Earth born?’, ‘Where was I born?’

To the Maya the birthplace of everything was Orion. To know what Orion meant to the ancient Maya is to know their story of creation which tells of the Milky Way symbolized as a great Ceiba tree, “the world tree”, raised up by the god considered the first father, the god of maize and creator as he sprouted from Orion. He sprang up from a cleft in the turtle’s back, from a cleft in the first mountain.

The turtle and the turtle’s back (‘first mountain’) is the Mayan symbol for the three stars most commonly known as Orion’s Belt. It is the place from which the maize god was resurrected. To them the three stars Alnitak, Saiph and Rigel, which form a triangle and part of Orion itself, are the ‘three stones of the hearth’ or the ‘creation stones’ and the cloudy form of Nebula M42 that they enclose is the smoke rising from the center. This is the place from which was first raised the sky from the ocean which lay in darkness and where was struck the first fire of creation by the gods who participated in that event. Heaven to the Maya was called ‘raised up sky’. The present day Maya still place three stones as a hearth in their homes. To this day the Yucatec Maya refer to Orion as ‘first three stone place’.

According to the Popul Vuh, the Mayan bible as transcribed by the elders of the Quiche Maya of highland Guatemala in the late 16th century, the young maize god was nurtured with water as he grew from a cleft in the turtle’s back by his twin sons, the twin heroes. Hunahpu and Xpalanque resurrected their father from Xibalba, the underworld, of which there are nine levels. He had been sacrificed there by the gods of Xibalba after losing in a ballgame in which he and his brother had been pitted against them.

Orion to the Maya is the center of Heaven, lying at the 13th and highest level of heaven. It is their version of Genesis that describes creation and is reflected in the night sky year after year as the Milky Way stands up from north to south through the zenith, rising from Orion, every year on August 13th. The Mayan calender moves in cycles of day and night, dark and light, heaven and hell. Their expertise in deciphering long term calendrical patterns gave them the ability to predict the future in terms of these energy cycles as reflected in world events. As I have been watching the news lately another question has occurred to me while Orion moves away from us and out of sight for the next six months. Could it be that heaven is leaving us for half of the year? I can only rest in the assumption that the light of heaven always comes back around.

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The Sun is in Aries.

Current Solar Flare (X-ray) activity : Current Status of Solar Geomagnetic Field :

(Updated every ten minutes from the NOAA Space Environment Center through n3kl.org.)

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	Sunday, May 11	Monday, May 12	Tuesday, May 13	Wednesday, May 14	Thursday, May 15	Friday, May 16	Saturday, May 17
Sunrise	6:58 am	6:58 am	6:58 am	6:57 am	6:57 am	6:57 am	6:57 am
Sunset	7:43 pm	7:43 pm	7:43 pm	7:44 pm	7:44 pm	7:44 pm	7:44 pm
Moonrise	1:04 pm	1:58 pm	2:48 pm	3:36 pm	4:43 pm	5:10 pm	5:58 pm
Moonset	1:59 am mon	2:38 am tue	3:15 am wed	3:50 am thur	4:26 am fri	5:02 am sat	5:41 am sun
Moon Phases

Current Morning Star:	Planet Jupiter (magnitude -2.6)	Current Evening Star:	Sirius - the dog star (magnitude -1.45)

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Previously in Mexican Skies...

Jan 6 - Photos Of Saturn	Jan 20 - Postcards From Messenger	March 23 - Life In Our Solar System	March 30 - Home Sweet Home	April 6 - Ten New Planets Found
April 13 - Fourth Earth-like Planet Found	April 20 - Saturn And Mars	April 27 - Colliding Galaxies

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