The Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the Constellations of the South

This post could easily be Part II of "With Friends Like These," since Bildad jumps in and takes his shots at Job, but I'll have plenty of opportunity in the ensuing days to discuss that. Instead, I'm more interested in the statement Job makes in 9:9 which is the title of my post.

Even those unfamiliar with astronomy can find the Big Dipper, which is the Bear in question (Ursa Major, and for those that care, Polaris, the North Star, is in Ursa Minor). You can find the Big Dipper by looking straight north about halfway up to the top of the sky, at which point you'll see a relatively bright star that is indeed the North Star. Since the Big Dipper is visible year-round, it travels in a circle around the North Star, and at this time of year, you'll find it at about the 4 o'clock position relative to the North Star. The two pointer stars should be clear as a bell.

Orion is worth a picture...

From Read Your Bible.

You'll find Orion by looking to the southeast at about 8:00 pm. The three stars that form his belt are the clear marker, and the stars in the upper left (red Betelguese) and lower right (blue Rigel) are among the brightest in the skies. The star that can be seen through the tree in the lower left hand part is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and yes, I took this picture.

I'll have to "borrow" someone's work for the Pleiades...

From Read Your Bible.

The Pleiades are the cluster of stars in the lower right hand side and will NOT look that big in the sky, but they're easy to spot. Look straight east almost near the top of the sky and you'll see six dim stars clustered together. If you can get your hands on binoculars, it makes for a nice sight. In a technical sense, one could argue that I "took" this picture as well, but we'll discuss that later on February 8th.

I will not go on and on about how astronomy is an outstanding tool to understand just how small we are with regard to God, but it works SO WELL, and the best part is, as small and tiny as we are in the incredibly vast universe (imagine a sphere with a radius of 820,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles--on second thought, scratch that, since you CAN'T imagine it), he still loves us. About a quarter of the way through Job, he still knows it too.

Scott