The original Messier 1, the Crab Nebula, has a visual magnitude of +8.4. But it was a whole lot brighter when Chinese astronomers discovered it on July 4, 1054. They recorded it as a “guest star” and they were able to view it during the day for nearly three weeks. With a visual magnitude of […]
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This is M45, the Pleiades. The Pleiades is a bright (magnitude +1.5) star cluster that is easy to spot with the naked eye. It will be just above the ENE horizon as the skies get dark on December 1. The Pleiades has been recorded by many cultures, including the Australian Aborigines, the Japanese, Mayans, and […]
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November begins with some Easy Deep Space Objects. There are quite a few bright Deep Space Objects (DSO) in the night skies of November. You can begin by looking for M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, as soon as the skies get dark. Start by looking towards the northeast. Find the large “W” formed by the main […]
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This is NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula. The Helix Nebula was not discovered until 1824. I suspect this was largely due to its southerly location, which makes it a rather difficult object to see. It never gets very high in North Carolina’s night sky, and many of the early astronomers, like Charles Messier, lived […]
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This is Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula. M 8 is about 4.3 thousand light-years away from us. It’s composed of a cluster of stars that are accented by an emissions nebula (red) and a dark nebula, (the black areas dividing the emission nebula.) The dark nebula give this formation its name since it reminded early […]
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The Perseids meteor shower will become active during the second half of July. Although it peaks on August 13, the best viewing will probably be early in the month, because there’s a full moon on August 15. That means it will be very bright on the peak of the Perseids and you won’t be able […]
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Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. Its diameter is about 87,000 miles–that’s about 11 times larger than Earth’s! Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and also about 5 times further from the sun than the Earth. The composition of Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen, 9% helium and it has small […]
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This is the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023. It was discovered in 1794 by William Herschel. The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula located about halfway between Polaris and Deneb. It has a visual magnitude of +7.2 and is 1,400 light years away from us. NGC 7023 is about 6 light years in diameter. It reflects […]
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Wikipedia defines a globular cluster as “a spherical collection of stars that orbit a galactic core, as a satellite.” Globular clusters are fairly common, and there about 150 globular clusters in the Milky Way. This is Messier 3, a +6.19 magnitude globular cluster that is 33 thousand light years away. M3 was discovered by Charles […]
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The night skies of March were literally filled with great opportunities to view some of my favorite Deep Space Objects (DSO) – galaxies. With very few exceptions, most galaxies are rather far away from us. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the Milky Way’s nearest galactic neighbor. It’s only 2.5 million light years away from us. […]
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