Recent Astronomy Articles at Cosmic Pursuits

The Cygnus Star Cloud

August 30, 2023 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

As northern summer nights grow longer in August and September, the big constellation Cygnus lies nearly overhead before midnight and offers dozens of colorful nebulae and star clusters for visual observers and astrophotographers. The newly discovered Radcliffe Wave begins here. So does the dark and dusty Great Rift that splits the band of Milky Way in two. Cygnus also contains the brightest section of the northern Milky Way in the grand Cygnus Star Cloud, the most prominent star cloud north of the celestial equator. With a pair of low-power binoculars or with just your dark-adapted eyes, this billowing collection of millions of stars along an arm of our galaxy offers as beautiful a sight as any earthly work of art or nature [Read more…] about The Cygnus Star Cloud

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The Methuselah Star

June 29, 2023 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Science, Stargazing

The dim zodiacal constellation Libra harbors just a handful of dim deep-sky objects and no bright stars. But within its boundaries lies the Methuselah Star, an ancient relic of the early universe born from the ashes of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang. It’s likely the oldest object of any kind you will ever see, and it’s an easy target in a pair of binoculars or small telescope. [Read more…] about The Methuselah Star

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An Exploding Star in Messier 101

May 30, 2023 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky, Science

An image of the galaxy Messier 101 and the supernova SN2023ixf next to the emission nebula NGC 5461. Captured on May 20, 2023. Image credit – Florian Rünger/Wikipedia Commons.

A big star exploded as a supernova in the lovely face-on spiral M101 in Ursa Major this month. At a distance of 20 million light years, this is the closest supernova in five years and the first in this galaxy since 2011. The new supernova isn’t close enough to see with the unaided eye, alas, but it lies within reach of a 5” or larger telescope for visual observers (as of the end of May 2023) and it offers an easy target for imagers. [Read more…] about An Exploding Star in Messier 101

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Two Fine Spiral Galaxies Near the Dipper’s Handle

April 28, 2023 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, and its companion NGC 5195. Credit: Terry Hancock at Downunderobservatory.com

The handle of the Dipper offers a convenient guide two stately face-on spiral galaxies that are visible, at least to some degree, in a small telescope. In dark skies, these two nearby galaxies display clear hints of a striking and ubiquitous pinwheel shape that reveals itself in the clouds of a hurricane or the seed arrangement in a sunflower, a reminder that many of nature’s patterns appear at a wide range of scales [Read more…] about Two Fine Spiral Galaxies Near the Dipper’s Handle

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An Ode to Small Telescopes

April 2, 2023 by Joe Bergeron Filed Under: Astronomy Equipment

A small telescope faces the Milky Way. Image credit: Brian Ventrudo.

Sometime in 1955, Mr. David Coffeen of New Orleans, Louisiana came up with $75. In today’s currency, that’s about $700, a respectable sum. And what did Mr. Coffeen do with his hard-earned savings?

He purchased a telescope.

Which telescope? A Unitron altazimuth refractor with an aperture of just 40mm, less than that of most finder scopes today. It came with three eyepieces, a star diagonal, and a wooden storage case, because it was an honest astronomical instrument.

Mr. Coffeen used his telescope from atop his modest trailer home. There was a lot to see with that 40mm scope: loads of lunar detail, the rings of Saturn, the Galilean moons of Jupiter and a couple of belts, hundreds of double stars, many of the Messier objects, and a lot more [Read more…] about An Ode to Small Telescopes

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