The Friday Five - 23 Sept '22: Stars!

[sabcatt]

Heeheehoohoo, I am sooo late to this one but nobody can stop me OR judge me because thefridayfive hasn't posted their next question set quite yet, so I'm in the clear!

1. How many stars can you see in the sky at night where you live? (Not looking for an exact number here, just a general description.)
Not a lot :( My various habitations have always been in cities; visibility is definitely better at my parents' house in California than at my place in Minnesota. In California I can see most constellations; in Minnesota, only the brighter stars, since I'm a lot closer to the center of the cities. I haven't actually made any attempts at stargazing where I am right now, but I assume it's not great because I am once again within a couple miles of a city center.

2. What is your favorite constellation?
Cygnus! I just like birds and I think he's definitely one of the more "accurate" constellations, in terms of the lines between his stars mapping pretty neatly into the actual shape of a swan in flight. I also like that his neck is so silly and long.

3. Are you able to see and identify any planets in the sky? Which ones?
I can usually identify Mars if it's out, on account of its being reddish. When I've been informed that Saturn and/or Jupiter are visible, I can usually spot them too, because they're pretty bright. I've never learned to identify Venus or Mercury though, even though Venus is brighter than the gas giants, because they're a lot more common and thus don't cause the same amount of fuss when they're out. I guess if it's late evening or early morning and there's only one object in the sky, I can make an Educated Guess that that's Venus, but that sort of feels like cheating because it's both sort of a given and only has like 70% certainty (lol).

4. Have you ever seen a satellite orbiting above the earth?
Probably? I don't prioritize looking for/at satellites the way I do stars and planets and comets, so I don't really remember them.

5. Have you ever seen a rocket blasted off into space?
Definitely not in person; I've seen recordings, but none of them were live. My mom took my little brother to go see the Endeavour's final flyover at Moffett Field back in 2012 before it was permanently retired down in LA, but I think I had school that day (he did too, but he was still in elementary school back then so he could skip with less consequences). That was... a long time ago. Wow.