Last week, I was visiting my dad who lives on a small farm in the Florida panhandle, and fortunately we had one night with clear skies so we could star gaze a bit - once the Sun sets, there's not a lot to do in the country. The night was clear but not too chilly, and the mosquitoes, which dive bomb like the Red Baron on some nights, weren't biting too badly. Once you get away from the city lights, you can really begin to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. I would rate the view from my dad's farm as a 3 (rural sky) on the 9 level, Bortle Dark Sky Scale (see last week's question). The Milky Way was quite obvious, and even some of its intricacies could be discerned. Additionally, several blurry objects were visible among the thousand plus stars that we could see with our naked eye.

One of the things that makes star gazing interesting and challenging is that there really aren't that many nights in a given year when you're able to clearly see the sky at its darkest. Thus, if you're making the effort to go outside and forego a few minutes of sack time, it's important to try to maximize your viewing opportunities. When picking the best night to view the heavens, you first want to look for a night when the moon has already set or has yet to rise. At any phase other than crescent, the brightness of the moon overwhelms everything else in the night sky - the dimmer objects fade from view. A full moon is stunning in its own right, but it'll make a dark rural sky look like an urban sky.

If you're looking at the night sky around 10:00, the moon will be a problem nearly half the time during the approximately 29 day lunar cycle. The first few evenings of a new cycle, the moon is in the crescent phase and sets soon after sunset. It doesn't pose much of a problem for either professional astronomers or casuals star gazers. However, from about the 5th day of the cycle until about the 19th day, the moon likely will be too bright at 10 p.m. for optimal viewing. After the 19th day, the moon is in the waning gibbous stage and doesn't rise until after 10:00 or so at this time of year, in the mid latitudes.

When you find a night when moonlight doesn't interfere, you won't want to limit your viewing by having to wait for clouds to move off. Even a few scattered cumulus clouds or a high cirrus deck can severely effect how much you can see. Additionally, if it's too cold, it's no fun to be outside. You'll be numb all over by the time the rods in your eye become adjusted to the dark - it takes about 10 minutes to fully adapt to the darkness.

In general, the bluer the sky is during the day, the darker it'll be at night. If the sky is relatively free of haze and pollutants, scattering of sunlight by these aerosols will be minimized and the sky will take on an azure blue color. This should make the sky more transparent at night.

Typically, the sky will be cleanest when a cold front has passed through your area, and the winds associated with this weather system have removed most of the haze and other airborne particulates that had been accumulating since the passage of the last front. Ideally, the front passed through early enough in the day so that the winds aren't too gusty at night. Excessive winds not only significantly lowers the wind chill but may make focusing more of a chore - the stars seem to twinkle more. Sometimes the night is especially dark after a big coastal storm has passed by or following a line of nasty thunderstorms.

If you have one of those glorious nights when the sky is pitch black, and you live in an area that suffers from little light pollution, you might be surprised at how many stars and other objects you're able to see once your eyes are fully adapted to the dark. At this time of year, you may be able to see two galaxies in the same part of the sky without using a telescope or binoculars, the Andromeda Galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda (referred to as M31) and the Pinwheel Galaxy (M33) in the constellation Triangulum. Incidentally, this "M" designation comes from the French astronomer, Charles Messier, who lived from 1730 until 1823. So for instance, M31 and M33 refer to the 31st and 33rd objects found by Messier that appeared fuzzy rather than star-like through his telescope.

Both M31 and M33 are pretty impressive with binoculars. They're both fairly high in the eastern sky at 10 p.m. (refer to a star chart for their exact location - website at the end of the question). If you're fortunate enough to live where the night sky is absolutely free of any stray light (class 1 or 2 on the Bortle Scale - truly dark skies), you can see both of these galaxies with direct vision, but even if your sky is not perfectly dark (class 4 on the Bortle Scale - rural/suburban transition), you may be able to see them with averted vision.

The "Great Galaxy" in Andromeda is the best known of any galaxy other than our own Milky Way. It's the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, but it's quite a bit bigger than our home galaxy - about twice the width of the Milky Way. The soft glimmer of light that we observe comes from perhaps 300 billion stars!

M31's slightly dimmer neighbor to the east , M33, is also a spiral type galaxy. Both of these star systems are about the same distance from us, a mere 2.3 million light years for M33 and 2.9 million light years for M31. For almost everyone, the Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object visible to the naked eye. The light that we see left M31 long before our quasi-ancestors first used fire to cook a slab of mammoth meat. An experienced observer might even be able to even see M31 if he or she lives in the suburban/urban transition zone (class 7 on the Bortle Scale).

The Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and M33 are all considered part of the Local Group of "nearby" galaxies. Hopefully, astronomers will eventually come up with a more interesting and descriptive name than "Local Group." Included in Local Group are the so called satellite galaxies, such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, easily visible from the Southern Hemisphere. The Large Magellanic Cloud is only about 1/5 the width of the Milky Way. These "clouds" are just a short hop away compared to the Andromeda Galaxy. They're no more than 200,000 light years from us.

Since the moon is near the new phase now, and if a front passes through your neck of the woods, poke your noggin outside and see if the nigh sky is noticeably darker in your area. Put a jacket on, let your peepers get adjusted to the dark, and then see if you can find the Andromeda Galaxy.

Here's one star chart that might help you locate constellations, star clusters and galaxies - http://www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/diary.html