27th Feb in backyard

[Tweedledee]

Got the scope out early in the backyard again yesterday about 4.30pm. Went out to work for a couple of hours and came back to see what was up there. There was some thin high cloud dimming the stars a little but I had some easy targets in mind anyway.

First thing I set the 10" scope on was Jupiter. Good for aligning the scopes and finders . The view was excellent with plenty of band detail and two Gallilean moons each side at 73x in the 14mm 100 degree ep. Jupiter is still in the Davis' Dog asterism and is surrounded by a rich field of stars. The dog really looks like a dog jumping up when seen in the 12x80 finder and actually looked even better when framed in the even wider field of the 10x50 binoculars.

Staying in the solar system, I had a look at Ceres, the largest asteroid. It is 590 miles in diameter and is just over 200 million miles from earth at the moment. I was surprised and interested to read that it constitutes one third of the mass of the whole asteroid belt! Ceres is very easy to find near to Alnath (beta Tauri) the upper horn which also forms part of Auriga. Ceres is at mag 7.5 and was 5 minutes of arc from a mag 6.3 star at about 700 light years away. It won't be there for long and is currently moving roughly eastwards at about 10 arcminutes per day. It is passing through a nice milky way starfield, but the thin clouds coupled with some light pollution was not helping the view.

Still in Taurus, I had a look at another asterism, yet another dog! It is called The Poodle and spans one and a half degrees. It is located about four and a half degrees from zeta tauri (the lower horn) towards Aldebaran. It has about 20 stars from 6th to 10th mag. With a little imagination it does look like a poodle when you use an erect image scope.

Below the poodle is the big arrow shaped asterism (pointing west) called the broken beach umbrella or Orions Arrow. This needs wide angle binoculars as it is over 5 degrees across, but once you find it, it is quite a striking object. All the 18 or so stars in it are bright 5.5 to 7th mag, it is definitely worth a look.

Had a fairly good view of Messier 35 in Gemini and plainly saw the smaller fainter more distant cluster NGC2158 which borders M35, but due to the worsening sky not many stars were resolved in it. A couple of degrees away, cluster NGC2129 showed as a tight group of about 10 stars at 73x. Between M35 and 2129, I looked for IC2157, another slightly fainter cluster, but saw nothing except maybe 2 or 3 faint stars where it should be. I had seen it previously on a better night and it showed a few more stars and was more obvious. Collinder 89 in Gemini showed up nicely 2 degrees east of M35 due to its brighter stars spilling over one and a half degrees of sky. It was a nice looking group filling the view of the 23mm Axiom 82 degree at 44x. Just under 2 degrees northeast of M35 is the asterism Ferrero 18 comprising a small rectangle of 7th to 9th mag stars about 10 arcminutes across with a slight fuzz of barely resolved and unresolved faint stars. This area has a lot of interesting stuff to look at.

Had a scan around star clusters in Monoceros, and saw NGC2244 the cluster in the Rosette Nebula and NGC2264 the cluster in the Cone Nebula also known as the Christmas Tree Cluster.

Auriga showed a few clusters including the very large bright Melotte 31 (the Flying Minnow) and the Cheshire Cat or smiling face asterism.

A few other things checked out included the Orion nebula region, a few clusters in Orion, and M44 the Beehive cluster.

I had to have a look at the double cluster, but using the ST120 and 23mm Axiom at 26x. The 3.1 degree field of view just allowed me to see the double cluster and the massive Stock 2 cluster with the chain of 7th mag stars joining them together in the same field. This is quite some view, although the sky was getting worse and it was no longer quite such a rich mass of stars.

Last off I pointed the scope in the opposite direction at Polaris and had a look at the Diamond Ring asterism, Harrington 1. Polaris is the diamond, the other 10 or so stars are all about 8th mag forming the rest of the ring. This actually looked quite nice and was all framed nicely in the big Axiom at 44x.

A quite varied and enjoyable session.

[catman161]

Great report pete you must have some nice skies where you observe from. The light pollution in the city (where I live) limits me to the brighter objects. M31 is very very dim and visible only as a small, dim ball of light-no outer detail from my back yard.

Your reports are always so informative and give me something to go and look up online/in a book. Thanks for sharing.

[Tweedledee]

Cheers Felix.

 

I live on the outskirts of Mansfield to the south east of the town centre, and it is never too brilliant around here these days, with some nearby car showrooms shedding some light skywards just to the north of me.

 

Last night the haze in the sky got worse as the night wore on, but picking the right (brightish) objects and knowing where to look for them helps. It is surprising what can be seen with a little planning in light polluted skies, I often surprise myself . It is never as enjoyable as some of the fantastic transparent skies I've seen from Belper, but I still find it fun in the backyard. Especially since I can pack everything straight back into the garage in about 10 minutes flat and be having a beer, contemplating what I've seen and not having to drive home.

 

I generally find M31 a disappointing sight from my backyard.

 

As you have probably noticed, I am getting some enjoyment and satisfaction from looking at asterisms and star clusters. A lot of them are a bit out of the ordinary, yet are fairly easy to find and make great targets for light polluted areas.

[Guest Tweedledum]

That report makes a really nice read Pete. Will have to set up a blog for you.

 

Cheers

[catman161]

Sound advice Pete, thanks. I keep noting the things you look at with a view I hunting them down myself-I must do that

[philjay]

A good read Pete, makes me wish Id taken my scope out that night. Interesting asterisms youve been picking out there whats your source?

[Tweedledee]

Hi Phil,

I have been very interested in clusters and asterisms especially since I got the Cambridge Photographic Star Atlas. This atlas is my favourite for studying on cloudy nights, I can thoroughly recommend it. Lots of clusters and asterisms are marked on this atlas that I had not seen anywhere else. I became rather intrigued and did some serious digging on the internet. I have now collected together numerous different lists, databases and info about asterisms large and small.

 

Eventually I found and joined a forum called Deep Sky Hunters and suddenly found pretty much all the people responsible for asterisms and clusters in the Cambridge atlas, ie: Streicher 58 and Ferrero 18, were members of this forum. They have a database currently containing about 1200 asterisms, but only the small ones that could be mistaken for proper physically connected star clusters. This forum does not catalog things the size of Davis' Dog, The Poodle or Orions Arrow, they leave the big stuff to other people. Although this list of 1200 asterisms is not official, it seems that these guys on the forum, who are well respected astronomers spread around the world, are gradually getting their more impressive asterisms marked on maps and refered to by others. I think the list is quite a useful and interesting reference to maintain. It seems that if a suitable candidate asterism which satisfies their strict parameters, star density etc, is found, it may have the name of the proposer assigned, ie: Jarowek 1 . It seems apparent that the bright and or more spectacular looking asterisms are all taken now and most of the new additions being found are pretty dim, sparse and rather uninspiring. The less spectacular ones are catalogued with names such as HD 249448-Group or Alessi J0556.8+1559 for instance. This forum includes prolific observers and authors you may know of, such as Sue French (S&T), Philipp Teutsch, Roger W. Sinnot, Steve Coe, Steve Gottlieb, Bruno Alessi, Magda Streicher, Jimi Lowrey (48" dob), Timo Kharhula and many others, most of whom have put their name to several asterisms, books and astronomical papers.

 

I am currently attempting to collate all the information from many different sources, with the intention of producing a comprehensive guide to all of these groupings.

 

Here are some sources to whet your appetite...

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/104047272/SAC_Asterisms_ver30_Excel.xls

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/104047272/Asterisms_EN_VER4.2.pdf

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/104047272/davis.pdf

 

Hoping others find them as interesting as I do.