Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
Dunno which way you were looking 
If you look at the Wikipedia list of brightest stars only Canopus, Achernar and Alpha Centauri are not visible from the UK.
Then there's the Summer Triangle, and usual suspects from around the celestial equator, they're just lower than you're used to  . Ursa Major and Cassiopeia are pretty distinctive IMO, the former with most stars around magnitude 2 make it visible pretty much from anywhere outside of city lights (that being the challenging bit!) |
It's not necessarily what's there Dunk, it's where it is. They see Scorpius & Sagittarius too! But they don't see the Scorpion & Milky Way Central passing over the zenith, Sirius & Canopus high in the sky, the False Cross through Crux to the Pointers high in the south, the brilliant diamonds Centaurus into Lupus, etc etc. I was once on a ship just 10-deg south of the equator and one night all the lights were turned off for an astronomy night. The presenter, Dennis Mammana, pointed out the northern sky and then the southern sky. It was chalk-and-cheese, a point as a northerner that he was all-too-happy to concede. Hmmm, unless I imagined it or was looking in the wrong place!
That said, Cassiopeia was exceptionally beautiful I thought! Ursa Major on the other hand is pretty ho-hum despite the reasonably bright stars, IMO.
Cheers -