90 MilliMeters

Posts Tagged ‘Cassiopeia’

Messier 52, an open cluster located in a rich Milky Way field in Cassiopeia.

Astronomy is a fascinating hobby, and when you own your own telescope, astronomy takes on a new meaning. Suddenly you get to see the craters on our Moon. You get to see the rings of Saturn, and so much more. [Read more...]

I’m going to try and get out there a little early tonight with my binoculars for a little scanning through Cassiopeia. The moon will rise around 8:18 PM EDT but will remain low enough until around 9:00 PM to get a few good views in. I guess I’m getting a little anxious. Before the full moon this month it skies were cloudy, now that we’re a few days past full moon and headed toward third quarter the skies have been clear but unsteady so seeing has been very poor. Makes me a little crazy sometimes. I was hoping to get some planetary observing done with Jupiter being so well placed, but, as you know, when seening is poor, objects in the eyepiece just boil.

Speaking of scanning through Cassiopeia, did you know, If we were able to observe our Sun from Alpha Centauri, the Sun would appear in Cassiopeia as a yellow-white 0.5 magnitude star. The famous ”W”of Cassiopeia would become a zig-zag pattern with the Sun at the leftmost end. Cassiopeia is positioned directly in the Milky Way.

M31 – Spiral Galaxy – Andromeda

Another look at M31 in Andromeda, this time under better sky conditions. The galaxy is elongated  NW/SE. At x40, with adverted vision, I can see some detail in M31′s southeastern side toward the center as well as the northwestern edge where a dark lane trails in toward the central glow of the galaxy. At x90 the detail becomes slighty more prominent.

M110 – Elliptical Galaxy – Andromeda.

An At x40 this galaxy is small but bright with a near stellar core. The object is elongated E/W. At x90, no additional detail is noticed beyond the hazy smudge of light.

NGC 663 – Open Cluster – Cassiopeia

This cluster seems to be clumped into 4 sections. A beautiful site at x40, about 11 tenth mag. stars with many 12th mag. stars.

Stock2 – Open Cluster – Cassiopeia

This is a very large cluster best viewed with low power. The cluster fills the entire eyepiece with around 50 tenth mag. stars.

Clear Skies.