The night of Monday the 29th of August was amazingly clear. The Milky Way was glittering overhead, Andromeda and the Double Cluster were visible to the naked eye, and a quick scan of the sky with even moderate binoculars turned up countless stars, and dozens of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. These dark, moonless autumn nights are truly special.
All set up by about 9.30, my first target was Saturn, while I waited for the sky to darken. Very bright and clear, with a clear Cassini division, surface banding, and a hint of shadow on one side, as the planet swings away from opposition, and is illuminated slightly from the side by the Sun.
To check if the sky was dark enough to allow me to track down some faint fuzzies, I took a quick glance at Stellarium on my phone, and I noticed a magnitude 9 galaxy near Algol in Perseus (NGC 1023). A somewhat random target, but I thought I’d give it a go, and was surprised at how easy it was to find. At around 34 million light years away it was a nice, clear sight. Bright core, with a fainter outer. The fact that it was so clearly visible was a good omen for the night to come.
Below and to the right of Perseus is Aries, and my next target (the first on my hit list, in fact): Mesarthim, a binary star system. Visible to the naked eye, this pair is very tight at around 50 times magnification, opening up nicely above that to reveal a pair of blue-white stars.
Just up from Aries is the Triangulum constellation, and M33, the Triangulum galaxy (Messier 33). Only marginally further from Earth than Andromeda, M33 is a large spiral galaxy, oriented face on to us. Unfortunately it’s got a very low surface brightness, so, on all but the really best nights, it can appear quite dim. I have seen it better in the past, but it’s always worth a look.
Speaking of Andromeda, I decided to take a quick look while I was in the area, so to speak. This ‘quick look’ actually turned into a much longer look than I’d planned. Normally, I like to use a low magnification, wide field of view eyepiece, so I can take in the galaxy itself, as well as the two satellite galaxies M32 and 110. In the end, I spent at least a half an hour using much higher mag eyepieces, scanning around the galaxy system, making out details in the two smaller companions.
Referring back to my hit list, and next up was Caldwell 44 (a barred spiral galaxy, magnitude 11, 120 million light years away in Pegasus). Like a lot of Caldwell objects, this was a tricky find, and visually small and faint. It’s always nice to tick a difficult object off your list, and it’s amazing to be able to see something at such a distance! The light that I was seeing left that galaxy 120 million years ago!
Swinging up to nearly overhead, I had a quick look at the Veil nebula in Cygnus (very nice, with lots of filamentary detail), before tackling something that I’ve tried and failed to confidently identify before: the Crescent nebula. On the face of it it’s an easy find: big, bright, and close to an easy-to-locate star in Cygnus. However, the Crescent complicates things by almost disappearing when viewed directly. One needs to use averted vision (and a nebula or OIII filter on the eyepiece), whereupon it appears as a large, and very bright ‘ear’. It’s a very interesting sight, and its tendency to fade when viewed directly is reminiscent of the Blinking planetary nebula.
Because completing the Messier catalogue is always at the back of my mind, I scanned through Sagittarius with my 10×50 binoculars, and straight away spotted two of the remaining objects on my list. M54 and M70 are globular clusters in the constellation of Sagittarius. Although close to the horizon, and almost lost in the atmospheric haze, I was thrilled to be able to view them with the scope and tick them off the list. Only four to go! M54 is brighter, higher, and relatively clear, with lots of individual stars visible, even though it’s so close to the horizon. M70 is less bright, with fewer stars on show.
I knew that Uranus is climbing higher in the East at this time of year, and so I swung the scope back again. Whilst searching for the planet I stumbled on NGC 524, a lenticular galaxy in Pisces, around 90 million miles away. Small, faint, but obviously a galaxy. Uranus looked fantastic: a small, pale orb. There was only the merest hint of the pale blue/green colour, but a fantastic sight nonetheless. I thought I could just about make out a couple of the planet’s moons, if I really concentrated and squinted, but wasn’t confident.
My final hit list item of the night was the Little Gem nebula, 6000 light years away in Sagittarius. This really is a tricky one. Even at x200 magnification it appeared little bigger than Uranus, and was a similar pale orb. I was really thrilled to find it (having tried and failed on several previous outings).
With the time approaching 1AM, and with work in the morning, I rounded off the evening with a look at the Pleiades; as ever, a gloriously sparkly wonder.
All in all a fantastic evening. I found some really tricky objects, revisited some old favourites with a new approach, and crept ever close to the magic 110 Messier objects.
What’s up?
As the New Moon was on August the 30th, we’ll start to see it appearing again in the evening sky over the next couple of weeks. However, we’ll still have a few nights of darkness before it starts to get in the way. Uranus and Neptune are fairly easy finds at the moment (in Pisces and Aquarius, respectively). Although possible in binoculars, the outer planets can be tricky without the aid of a telescope.
The Triangulum galaxy (M33), is very well placed at the moment, and is easily within reach of even moderate binoculars. A couple of very nice binary stars to look out for at the moment are the blue/white Mesarthim in Aries (mentioned above), and the lovely gold/blue pair that is Rasalgethi in Hercules (high in the West). Both are fairly tight doubles, especially the latter – so you’ll need a telescope to split them – but well worth checking out.
Clear skies!
Kevin Quinn is an amateur astronomer based in Cerne Abbas. He is the proud owner of a ten-inch reflector, a small refractor, a case of eyepieces, and a couple of pairs of binoculars. He tweets via @CerneAstro, and blogs (occasionally) via theastroguy.wordpress.com.
©Kevin Quinn
