I began the last piece by complaining about how terrible the weather had been, and how there’d been no opportunities for stargazing. Well, no sooner had I submitted the piece but the skies cleared. It’s now Sunday the 25th of October, and for what is my tenth astronomy piece (!) for Dorset Eye, I thought I’d give a round up of the past couple of weeks’ hay making …
On Monday the twelfth, I was asked if I could do an astronomy presentation for Charminster Scout group. Of course I said yes, and that evening I did a brief talk on the subject of astronomical distances (miles, astronomical units, light years) and then took the kids for a look through the scope. Everyone had a look at the Andromeda galaxy, the Owl cluster in Cassiopeia, the Ring nebula in Lyra, and Albireo in Cygnus; very exciting it all was, too! The Scouts asked lots of questions, and there were a great many ‘wow’s and ‘cool’s …
The following night was also clear, so, not wanting to miss an opportunity, I set up in my usual spot in Cerne Abbas and had another couple of hours at the eyepiece. I revisited a some old favourites: the Pleiades, Messier galaxies M81 and M82, and I also spent quite a while on Andromeda and its companion galaxies M110 and M32. Andromeda looked absolutely amazing, with a dark dust lane running across it, and the galactic disc clearly visible and extending beyond the field of view of the eyepiece. I also spotted a couple of new (to me) objects from the Caldwell catalogue (I’ll save a discussion on the Caldwells for another day). C23 is an edge-on galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda, but about 30 million light years away! It’s very dim, and very narrow, with a dark dust band running across the middle; I was very chuffed to find it! Just take a moment to let that distance sink in … 30 million light years. 1 light year is about 6 trillion miles (that’s a 6 followed by 12 zeros) … so C23 is about 180 million, trillion (180,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles away.
C28 is an open star cluster in the same constellation. Containing about 60 stars, the cluster was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783. Incidentally, I’m currently reading The Complete Guide to the Herschel Objects: Sir William Herschel’s Star Clusters, Nebulae and Galaxies by Mark Bratton, and, it must be said, the achievements of William and Caroline Herschel are nothing short of astonishing. I’ll save a discussion of the Herschels for another piece.
On Wednesday the 14th, now the third night in a row, I recorded in my log: “A night of star clusters”. There was M15, a globular cluster in Pegasus (do check out its Wikipedia page, it’s very interesting); Ms 36, 37 and 38, plus NGCs 1907 and 1778 in Auriga; NGC 1342 and IC 343 in Perseus; and C28 again in Andromeda. All were very bright and sparkly in the eyepiece. Galaxies included Ms 81 and 82 again, C23 again, NGC 404 (also rather excitingly referred to as Mirach’s Ghost), and M33, the Triangulum galaxy. The latter is a very large, face on spiral galaxy just above the constellation of Triangulum. Visible in even moderate binoculars, it is pretty faint, but on a dark and clear night is spectacular, with the spiral arms clearly visible.
Jumping forward to Saturday the 24th I had intended to look for Uranus and Neptune, but the Moon, with only a few days to go before being full, was too bright; I couldn’t find any stars to navigate by. No worries, the Moon itself was spectacular. I don’t normally spend much time on the Moon, but it was either that or an evening in front of the TV, so I spent an enjoyable hour or so scanning its craters, ridges and mountains.
Sunday the 25th, 4.30 AM. Mars, Venus and Jupiter are currently putting on a spectacular show in the early hours of the morning, and will continue to do so for the next few weeks. In fact, on the mornings of the 2nd and 3rd of November Venus and Mars will pass very close to one another. Pretty high in the East, and just below Leo, the three planets are unmistakeable and well worth setting your alarm for (as I did this morning). The cloud bands of Jupiter, plus the four Galilean moons of Ganymede, Io, Europa and Calisto were very impressive this morning. Venus (the brightest of the three planets) was incredibly bright, and its current phase of half illuminated/half in shadow really gave a sense of its position relative to the Earth and the Sun. Mars was a small, orangey-red orb. But then, at over 330,000 million kilometers away it would be! Oh, I also saw an Orionid meteor!
All in all a pretty full couple of weeks, with 33 astronomical objects (the above mentioned, plus a few stars here and there, and the 4 Galilean moons) viewed … pretty good going. Even so, I’m already looking forward to my next outing.
What’s up?
Full on Tuesday the 27th, the moon will dominate the night sky for the next week or so, but after that we’ll see a return to dark evening skies for a couple of weeks. This is a very exciting time in the astronomy calendar, with the return of Orion to the night sky. The constellation will be rising in the East by about 10 PM, getting higher as the nights go by. The Great Orion Nebula (that fuzzy patch below the three stars of Orion’s belt), is an endlessly fascinating sight, and an awe-inspiring one when viewed in a telescope.
Clear skies!
Kevin Quinn is an amateur astronomer based in Cerne Abbas, he is the proud owner of a ten-inch reflector and a hefty pair of binoculars. He tweets via @CerneAstro, blogs via theastroguy.wordpress.com, and his ebook Demystifying Astronomy – A beginner’s guide to telescopes, eyepieces and accessories for visual astronomy is widely available.
©Kevin Quinn
