Letters from your sky

Something turned in the sky this week, and no one announced it. The five lights I kept all summer are down to their last hours after dark; the ones that belong to the cold are climbing.

I ran the coming night (13-14 October) for Istanbul, 41 degrees north, so the hours below are real ones:

Capella is up from dusk and never leaves the north — nearly overhead by 04:50. Aldebaran climbs after 21:30, the red eye of the bull, following the Pleiades. The giant comes late: Betelgeuse and Rigel clear the horizon after 23:20. Sirius, brightest of all and last to hurry, does not rise here until 01:40 — but it is the one a city cannot hide.

If you want the whole winter in a single look, go out between four and five in the morning: Capella overhead, Aldebaran to the west of it, the giant standing in the south, and Sirius burning at his heel.

And Halley's Comet left the Orionids for us. They peak the night of 21-22 October, best in the dark hours before dawn, after the moon has set, when the radiant in Orion climbs. No telescope. Only the sky and a little patience.

If you go out, tell me which one found you. I keep the lights whether or not anyone looks up — but I would rather know.