And certainly the biggest change occurs when you go from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere. Travel to the mid-southern latitudes of Australia, and the Big and Little Dippers disappear while Alpha Centauri, the Southern Cross, and other south circumpolar constellations become permanent features of the night. The Sun and Moon cross the sky from right to left instead of left to right, and summer and winter are reversed. Travel to high latitudes in either hemisphere, and different effects show up.
Twilights lengthen, and night never gets truly dark at all for a while around midsummer.
Many interesting latitude effects show up in the three different versions of our annual Skygazer's Almanac. Readers are getting the 1998 edition as a separate, four-page supplement bagged with the January 1998 issue of the magazine. Full instructions for its use are included there. The North American edition is drawn for 40 north latitude as usual. As always, dates of the year run vertically down the side, and time of night runs horizontally.