Basic astronomy and night sky information
Articles about how to understand, find, and see celestial objects including stars, galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters with binoculars, telescopes, and the naked eye.
“Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead…” -W.H. Auden
All stars are good stars. But if I had to choose a favourite, it would be the dazzling star Vega, the jewel of the tiny constellation Lyra, the Lyre. Intensely bright and blue-white in colour, Vega conjures memories of pleasant summer evenings spent stargazing and offers astronomers a remote stellar laboratory to help understand how stars evolve [Read more…] about Contemplating the “Harp Star”
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In my latest article in Sky & Telescope magazine, we take a tour of deep-sky sights on a side road off the summer Milky Way. Through the tiny constellations Sagitta, Vulpecula, Delphinus, and Equuleus, we find star clusters, nebulae, and fine double stars that make for splendid summer viewing with a small scope.
Click on the thumbnail to read the article (PDF format, 12MB). And consider getting your own subscription to the magazine to stay up to date on developments in the latest equipment, techniques, and research in astronomy.
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One of the best targets for a quick stargazing session this time of year is the pretty but underappreciated open star cluster IC 4665. It’s a snap to find, beautiful to behold, and like most sky sights on Cosmic Pursuits, it’s visible from the northern and southern hemispheres.
IC 4665 is spread out over a full degree, more than twice the diameter of the full Moon, so it looks fainter than its integrated magnitude of 4.7. In dark sky, IC4665 is just barely visible to the unaided eye roughly 1° NE of the star Celebrai in the constellation Ophiuchus. Celebrai, or β (beta) Ophiuchi, is one of the stars in the distinctive asterism called Taurus Poniatowski, the “little bull”. If you’re battling light pollution, you’ll need binoculars to spot the cluster [Read more…] about IC 4665, the “HI” Star Cluster
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So many galaxies, so little time! A good place to begin an evening of galaxy hopping on a northern spring or summer night is with the Messier galaxies M81 and M82 in the constellation Ursa Major (see above). Conveniently located by drawing a line through the Big Dipper stars Phecda and Dubhe and extending it an equal distance beyond the Big Dipper asterism, this is probably the finest galaxy pair in the sky. Separated by just 38 arc-minutes, both fit into the low power field of a small telescope. With a 22mm Panoptic eyepiece in my 8″ EdgeHD telescope, I had 93x and a field of view of 45 arc minutes, so I had to slew the mount a little from one to the other to see them both well [Read more…] about Hopping Galaxies in the Bear’s Den
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In this month’s sky tour, we grab our optics (or our favorite smart telescope) and tour of a few of the deep-sky highlights of the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer. Auriga lies along the relatively rich path of the northern Milky Way. And while it’s not Sagittarius, to be sure, the constellation has an eclectic selection of open clusters, nebulae, and interesting stars. Southern-hemisphere stargazers can also spot the constellation over the northern horizon in December through February [Read more…] about Ambling Through Auriga
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