A Star among Stars
"BJ Wilson, Procol Harum's Drummer"
Richard Beck
writes:
Due to issues of seasonal orientation and time zones, it is impractical,
if not impossible, to provide a universal, layman's method of simply stepping
out-of-doors tonight and finding the constellation Ophiuchus, other than
to say that it is visible just outside the bright clutter of the Milky
Way. If I then were to mention that it's at the ecliptic and lies across
the celestial equator just south of Hercules, then you begin to get the
idea.
More difficult again is the task of locating BJ's star within it. But
for the intrepid novice stargazer, the provided celestial coordinates are
universal and applicable to the most rudimentary of published star-charts
for simply locating his constellation; literally as easy as using the numbered
and lettered coordinates an any terrestrial map. Simple enough? Well, not
quite.
The star is an 11.5 magnitude. Under the best of viewing conditions,
i.e. well away from city lights, magnitudes of 0–5.0 are visible to the
naked eye. Magnitudes of 5.0–10.0 are visible with reasonably good quality
binoculars. In short, BJ's star would require a small telescope and a competent
astronomer to locate and view it.
While we might suppose that virtually no one will be that insistent
upon an actual astronomical sighting (short of trawling the archives of
NASA's Hubble Telescope photos) we can perhaps find satisfaction in the
symbolic aspect of a perpetual memorial to BJ Wilson on record.
As an incidental footnote, when the zodiac was originally named, the
ecliptic (path of the Sun) did not cross Ophiuchus. Due to celestial precession,
the Sun now spends quite a long time in the constellation. Thus is the
reason that no one today can boast that their astrological sign is Ophiuchus.
BJ, you have this one all to yourself!
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size" (approximately 18" x 12") if you wish to print one
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