Deep Sky Observing

As northern autumn turns to winter, the arc of the northern Milky Way reaches nearly overhead in the evening hours. Here we look into the Perseus Arm, the outermost spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy which is flecked by dozens of sparkling open stars clusters accessible to a small telescope. This region nearly rivals the dense star fields of Scutum and Sagittarius, summer constellations which lie towards the inner arms of the Milky Way. This month, let’s take a quick tour of a few highlights of the Perseus Arm in the constellation Cassiopeia. It’s a perfect part of the sky for visual observing or for taking a few astro-snapshots [Read more…] about Sightseeing Along the Perseus Arm

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Colder weather moves in this time of year and not a leaf remains on the trees, but the longer nights mean that most of the stars of northern summer still linger. And so I found myself on a clear and chilly night in late October taking in some favorite star clusters along the spine of the Milky Way with a small refractor, while a second small scope and camera took snapshots of the same clusters.

In this month’s tour, let’s look at three of these star clusters, each in spectacular star fields. All come from the Messier list – one tight galactic cluster and two loose globulars. They make for pleasant visual inspection, and all serve as excellent targets for those of you taking snapshots of the sky with a little smart telescope like the Seestar 50 or with your own setup. I captured the live stacked images here with a 72mm refractor and ZWO 676MC camera (in case you were wondering). Each image has the same field of view, about 1 degree on an edge, which gives you a comparative view of these three clusters [Read more…] about A Tale of Three Star Clusters

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At this time of year, just after darkness falls, we get to see the thickest part of the Milky Way extending over more than half the sky from Cygnus to Scutum to Sagittarius. And where there’s Milky Way, there are star clouds. Grab your binoculars or small telescope and take a tour of the best star clouds of a northern summer (and southern winter) with the recent article published in Sky & Telescope magazine. Inspired by the photographic work of E.E. Barnard in the early 20th century, this sky tour starts with the ‘Great Cloud’ of Sagittarius and works northwards, stopping to see many star clusters and dark nebula in and around these regions of shimmering starlight.  It also includes visuals, especially the recent black-and-white film photography of James Cormier. Click on the image to the left to download the article on PDF format (it’s about 6MB). Then enjoy the tour!

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