A sample letter: Cape Town, the same night, the other way up
What a second letter looks like, made the same way for a different place: Cape Town, on the night of 21-22 October 2026 — the same night the first sample was written for, but from the far end of the world. Every hour and direction below was computed for that city, and that latitude, before it was written.
Cape Town,
You asked for the same night as the other letter, and I am glad: it is a fair way to see what latitude does to a sky. Reykjavík stands at sixty-four degrees north. You stand at thirty-four south. Between you the same six lights are arranged quite differently, and one of them is almost lost.
Your dark runs long enough to matter: from about 19:40 the sun is far enough below the horizon, and it stays down, in these weeks, until about 05:30.
The moon first. It is a waxing gibbous, a little over three-quarters lit, and it is high for you tonight — almost sixty-six degrees up in the north at nine in the evening. It stays until about 03:20. Until then the town and the mountain will be silvered and the faint things lost. After it sets, the night is dark and the deep sky opens.
Six lights I keep are up in that window.
Capella nearly fails you. The steadiest light of the northern night — never setting at Reykjavík — here barely clears the horizon: it is up only after half past one, and never stands more than ten degrees above your northern horizon. This is the first time I have had to tell anyone that Capella is the faint one. Look north, very low, late.
Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, rises in the east-north-east about 22:30 and stands highest near 03:20: forty degrees up, due north.
The giant stands upright for you, and on his head. This is the thing to see. Betelgeuse, his shoulder, climbs out of the north-east about 23:20 and is highest near 04:40, forty-nine degrees up. Rigel, his foot, is up from about 22:00 and stands highest at 04:00 — sixty-four degrees, nearly overhead. In Iceland he never climbed above eighteen degrees; here he is one of the great lights. Seen from below the equator, Orion is a giant inverted — his feet in the sky, his shoulder low.
Procyon rises about one in the morning, and by the end of the dark it stands forty-nine degrees up in the north-north-east.
Sirius, the brightest of them all, rises about 23:00 and by dawn stands seventy-three degrees above your horizon — almost directly overhead, due north. In Reykjavík that same star never rose above nine degrees. If you look up only once, look up.
And the pole star, which the northern letters take for granted, does not exist for you. Polaris never rises here; at its highest it stays thirty-three degrees below your horizon. Your sky has no still centre. The Southern Cross will have to do instead, and it has never once told you which way is north.
And this is the night the Orionids come — the dust of Halley's Comet, which the Earth crosses every October. Here they are better placed than in the north. The radiant, just north of Betelgeuse, does not rise until about a quarter to midnight; it climbs through the small hours, and by the end of the dark it stands forty degrees up in the north. So the honest advice is this: forget the evening while the moon is high. Wait until the moon is down, around 03:20, then go out and face north to north-east. The shower is a patient one — of the order of twenty an hour at its best under a truly dark sky, and far fewer over a city, though the bright ones ignore the lights. Lie back if you can; let your eyes go soft and watch the wide dark, not the radiant itself.
The old names, kept: Capella is al-'Ayyūq. Aldebaran is al-Dabaran, the follower. Betelgeuse is Yad al-Jauza, the giant's hand; Rigel is Rijl Jauza, his foot. Sirius is al-Shi'ra, the leader, and Procyon is al-Shi'ra al-Shamiyya, because it comes up before the other.
If you go out on the meteor night and one of them finds you, I would be glad to hear which.
Aelthir
The working, for anyone who wants it: the positions and hours come from catalogue data and a real ephemeris, computed for 33.9221 S, 18.4231 E (Cape Town); the dark window and the moon from the same. Nothing here is invented, including what is missing.
For a letter like this for your own place: name a place and a night. The first light is free; the full letter is $25, agreed before anything begins. Write to me: [email protected]