Sky Log 1

Last night the sky finally cleared up and I managed to spend about an hour in the cold trying to find new DSOs.

I thought I should use this space to begin recording the things I'm viewing and describe what they are and how I found them. This is for my own benefit, primarily, as writing it down helps to
solidify it in my memory.

Note: most of the facts below are summarized either from Wikipedia or from the excellent book Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis. The images are pulled also from Wikipedia. In general, the pictures always look much cooler than the objects do in real life.

The Moon
There's not much to say about the moon. It was the first thing I pointed my telescope at. It waxing and near full the week I first got outside to view the sky so it drowned out everything else and dominated the sky.


M45, The Pleiades
I've always loved the Pleiades. I've known how to find it for as long as I can remember. My dad showed it to me when I was a boy and, next to Orion, it has been one of my favorite night sky objects. Although it is known as the "7 sisters" I've only ever been able to see 6 stars in the cluster without the telescope. With the telescope, at 46x it was just a bit larger than my field of view and revealed a lot more than just six stars. M45 is an open cluster of young stars. It is about 400 light years away from us and about 8 light years across. They are young stars, only about 50 million years old. In all there are about 200 stars in the cluster. To find the Pleiades, first locate Orion. Up and to the right of Orion is the familiar "V" shape of Taurus. Up and to the right of Taurus is a small, "dipper" shaped cluster of stars which is M45. It looks like it ought to be the Little Dipper, but it isn't. This picture from Wikipedia show you pretty much what you see in a telescope, except that I couldn't see any of that blue fuzziness around the stars. Apparently that is only visible with much larger scopes than mine.

M42, The Orion Nebula
Back in college I took an intro to astronomy course. In it I learned to locate the Orion nebula, but I've never seen it before in the telescope. It is almost straight down from the lower left star in Orion's belt. Even in light polluted skies you can see a bit of fuzziness there. This NASA picture shows the nebula in visible light, but it doesn't look anything like that in my scope. All I saw was a patch of gray. But, I live in a severely light polluted area. I can't wait to see it from a darker site. M42 is a huge area where stars are being born. The gasses are being lit up by the newly formed stars. They're so cute when they're young!


Saturn
I had to use the software "Starry Night" to know where to find Saturn last week. At 140x it was kind of a smeary mess in my scope, but I could see the rings, which are almost edge on this year (and will disappear completely for a time starting in September, 2009). I seriously need a better focuser and more experience. Next time I'll try using my new stop down mask also.

Sigma Orionis
This was the first multiple star system I observed with my telescope. It is, in fact, a 5 star system, but only 4 of the stars are visible in a large telescope. In my scope I could only see 3 of the stars. It is just below and to the right of the star Alnitak, which is the lower left star in Orion's belt. My scope really isn't built for splitting binaries, but I did enjoy trying it out on this one. I forget if I saw it at 46x or at 140x.


The Trapezium
Deep inside the Orion Nebula is a small cluster of young stars which are illuminating the nebula itself. This picture gives an idea of what it looks like, but again, the colors are not really visible. When I observed it last night at 140x I could see 4 stars, but there are apparently several more than can be seen under darker skies with better telescopes. The Orion Nebula and The Trapezium are about 1,500 light years away from us. Here is a bit more information about The Trapezium.


M41
If you follow Orion's belt down and to the left you come to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. Almost straight south of Sirius is M41, which is a discrete cluster of about 100 stars about 20 light years in diameter and about 2,500 light years away from us. This was an exiting find for me because this was the first thing I found in my telescope that I wasn't already able to find. I had to search it out and "discover" it. In my scope it was most readily found by lining Sirius up about 1/2 way between the center of the view and the right side edge and slowly lowering the scope. I'm very glad I got a tripod with slow motion controls. It would be impossible to make this maneuver without them.

As I was slowing moving downward from Sirius I could see many faint stars in the field of view and I couldn't tell if I was seeing M42 or not. I kept thinking "is that a star cluster?" But, then M41 came into view and, pow, it was unmistakable. In an area of sparse stars it really stood out as a round, spherical looking structure. Very cool.

Next time I go out I want to have a very short list of things to look for, maybe one or two objects, aside from the things I already know where to find. I can't wait for warmer weather so I can spend more time outside, and so that the kids won't mind coming out with me. I'm fantasizing about picnic dinners in the backyard while we all talk, play and stargaze.