{"id":120,"date":"2022-12-09T09:24:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T09:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/?p=120"},"modified":"2022-12-09T17:15:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T17:15:12","slug":"experience-the-heliacal-rising-of-sirius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/2022\/12\/09\/experience-the-heliacal-rising-of-sirius\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience the heliacal rising of Sirius"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 15 August 2018 during a summer camp we organized high up in the mountains, I took a group of participants to witness the heliacal rising of Sirius<\/strong>. The event marks the star’s first appearance in the morning sky after a period of time spent hidden behind the Sun. In Ancient Egypt, the event marked the beginning of the year and occurred earlier, around the summer solstice (20\/21 June). Due to precession it now takes place 2 months after. The intention was to see how many of us can actually see it. I can still remember the reaction of one of them as she said to me: based on what you were telling me I thought it would be something spectacular, instead it twinkled faintly for a few moments and it disappeared into the sunshine as quickly as it appeared<\/em>. But it was enough for our ancestors to know the new year has arrived!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Heliacal
The heliacal rise of Orion (you can clearly see the belt as the three almost vertical lines upper right) and Sirius (the bright star near the pyramid-shaped tree (center right on the horizon).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August also coincides with the reappearance of the Orion constellation<\/strong> in the morning sky. As months pass the constellation will rise into the night sky and dominate the winter skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image
The heliacal rise of Orion on 15 August 2018. Can you spot the belt in the center of the image?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The heliacal rise of Sirius. Can you spot it as a faint white spot between the two mountain peaks in the center of the image? Try saving the image and zooming in. (High-resolution image 4928×3264 pixels)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not as impressive as a sunrise but something that our Egyptian ancestors awaited each year patiently as it marked the start of the rainy season, the flooding of the Nile, and a rich harvest. Of course, there was no way for them to know that in fact, the African rainy season<\/strong> was beginning close to the source of the Nile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not satisfied with what the ancient gods had stored for them they decided to have their own heliacal rise close to a stone circle we have built to learn more about the process. More about that in a future post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A more impressive heliacal rising of the “Sirius” orange.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you enjoyed this post consider following <\/strong>us on Facebook<\/a>, Youtube<\/a>, and Twitter <\/a>or donating <\/strong>on Patreon<\/a>. Also, stay tuned for public events<\/strong> Marc hosts regularly on Eventbrite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Continue readingExperience the heliacal rising of Sirius<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66,64,12,15,65,63,60,26,67,62,24,61,11],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starscape-experiences.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}