M45---The Pleiades, The Seven Sisters, Subaru

Even folks without a telescope should recognize this group of stars, the Pleiades, which rises around sunset on November evenings and is a familiar sight throughout the winter in North America. It is an open cluster of stars between 393 and 449 light years distant according to the latest studies. In binoculars and especially in a telescope, the blue-white color of the cluster's stars appears. This image only captures the center of the cluster. The Pleiades group contains at least 500 stars, some too dim to be caught in such a short exposure through such a small telescope. The cluster is passing through a cloud of dust and gas. This image does show a small bit of the starlight reflected in blue on the dust around some of the brighter stars. Much more reflected starlight appears in the Hallas's much deeper image. My image was take with the 400D through the AT66ED, unguided on the LXD75 mount. Total exposure time was 17 minutes, or 68 x 15". Data was gathered on the night of October 18-19.

A Taurid Fireball

I was out last night around 12:15 pm and saw a bright fireball. It streaked through southern Gemini and appeared to come from Taurus, around Aldebaran. It shone quite a bit brighter than Jupiter, which was visible above my tree-line earlier. The streak covered probably between 25 and 30 degrees across the sky. I suppose this would be a Taurid.

A Dash Through Perseus: NGC 1342, Struve 425

Tonight I observed NGC 1342 in Perseus with the 100mm f/6. I counted 22 stars in the cluster. Many of the brighter stars form a long, rough arc along one side of the cluster, and others are scattered around inside the arc. It's worth the trip halfway from Algol to Atik.
From NGC 1342, I moved to Atik itself and then northwest 40 Persei. 40 is a double star. At 60x, I could see the bright primary (magnitude 5) and the much dimmer secondary (mag. 9.5) off to the upper left. The secondary is so delicately dim. It looks so fragile there, floating near the brighter star.
Next to 40 Persei, in the same view at 60x, is Struve 425. At 60x, it looked like one star, but at 120x, the two components split to reveal two equally bright stars (mag. 7.6) just 2" apart. They looked like a dimmer Gamma Virginis. With clear seeing, the 100mm f/6 put black space between the two.
I also observed M31, M32, and M110. I could see all three in one 17.5x view, though M110 only with averted vision.

NGC 891, Vesta

In my light-polluted skies, NGC 891 in Andromeda was just a slight smudge, barely visible in averted vision, but the smudge was elongated roughly northwestish to southeastish, and it was exactly where I later confirmed it in Uranometria. I also found the asteroid 4 Vesta, which passed through the head of the whale in the constellation Cetus (the whale) this month. Observations were made with the 100mm f/6 achromat.

Trapezium, Star E, 4" Refractor

This morning I saw the E component of the Trapezium in my 100mm f/6 achromatic refractor. I was using a 10mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece and a Celestron 2x barlow for 120x magnification. I was surprised. I've seen the E and F components in my 8" reflector but never either one in a 4" scope. Probably it's just for lack of trying. The E and F components should both be visible with more magnification and without the last quarter waning moon in Gemini as it was this morning.

Gamma Andromedae

Gamma Andromedae, or Almach, is a wonderful double star! At 120x in the 100mm f/6, the primary star is a glowing, twinkling, brilliant orange, and the secondary is a small, white diamond beside it. I've seen it before, but it is better each time I look at it. I'd be interested in other's impressions through other scopes. Apparently the secondary is itself a double star, but I'll need a bigger scope to split it.

Luna Early this Morning

Here is the waning moon early this morning. This was taken with the XTi through the AT66ED.