Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! With the Moon gone from the early evening skies and the weather beginning to warm for northern climes, isn’t it about time you at least took a pair of binoculars out and scanned the skies with me? Some of mankind’s greatest astronomers were born over the next three days, included J.L.E. Dreyer, Fritz Zwicky, William Pickering and Galileo Galilei! Although our weekend targets are simple and you’ve probably already seen them before – how long has it been since you’ve last looked? Or tried with alternative sized optics? Ah… Yes. You begin to see the light! Come on. Dust those old binoculars off and head out into the back yard. I’ll be waiting…
Honor Dreyer tonight by discovering one of his catalog objects suited for all optics – NGC2287.
Located about two finger-widths south of Alpha Canis Majoris (RA 06 46 00 Dec -20 46 00), only an open cluster this bright could stand up against brilliant Sirius. From a dark-sky location, your unaided eye can even spot this magnitude 4.5 “star vault” as a hazy patch. Aristotle saw it as early as 325 BC! Officially discovered by Hodierna, we know it best by the designation Messier Object 41. Even from 2,300 light-years away, the cluster’s brightest star, an orange giant, stands out clearly from the stellar nest. With large aperture, you’ll notice other K-type stars, all very similar to Sol. Although small scopes and binoculars won’t reveal too much color, you might pick up on the blue signature of young, hot stars. NGC 2287 could be anywhere from 190 to 240 million years old, but its stars shine as brightly now as they did in Aristotle’s day. . .and Dreyer’s!
Saturday, February 14, 2009 – Happy Valentine’s Day! On this date in 1747, astronomer James Bradley presented his evidence of Earth’s wobble, called nutation. The study took 19 years, but won Bradley the Copley Medal! In 1827, George Clark was born. The name might not ring a bell, but it was indeed a bell—melted down—that he used to create his first brass telescope. George’s family went on to produce the finest—and largest—telescopes of their time.
Tonight we’ll look at a supernova remnant as we venture to the Crab Nebula. Finding M1 is easy: it can be seen with as little as 7X magnification. Locate Zeta Tauri (about halfway between Orion’s ‘‘head’’ and the southernmost bright star in Auriga) and aim about 1 degree northwest (RA 05 34 31 Dec -22 00 52).
The birth of lunar and planetary observer William Pickering followed in 1858. During Pickering’s professional years at Harvard, he noted that the entire constellation of Orion is encased in faint nebulosity. Later verified by E.E. Barnard, this nebula is now known as Barnard’s Loop.
With a very dark sky and excellent transparency, you can trace the ‘‘Loop’’ with binoculars. The area is so large and it’s pointless to provide coordinates, but the brightest portion extends eastward between Alpha and Kappa. Because the Orion complex contains so many rapidly evolving stars, it stands to reason a supernova has occurred there. Barnard’s Loop is probably the ancient shell leftover from such a cataclysmic event. If taken as a whole, it would encompass 10 degrees of sky! More difficult for Northern Hemisphere viewers is IC 2118, a huge reflection nebula west of Rigel known as the ‘‘Witch Head.’’ Once photographed by Pickering, IC 2118 is more sensitive to film than to the eye,
but that doesn’t mean you can’t see it. Sky conditions are the decisive factor, so look closely around the eastern edge where the fueling stars are brightest. You just might surprise yourself!
Until next week? Dreams really do come true when you keep on reaching for the stars!
This week’s awesome photos are: J.L.E. Dreyer (historical image), NGC 2287: M41 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), Fritz Zwicky (historical image), Messier Object 1 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), Galileo (historical image) and Eastern edge of IC 2118 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech).
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