Messier Objects - M36

The next few days of posts will be dedicated to logging my observations from my time at the observatory last Friday evening.  The weather was clear all day and I was anticipating a clear evening.  However, as we were driving to the observatory some clouds starting moving in from the West, partially covering the sky.  When the telescope was setup only Orion and Auriga were visible.

In the Explore the Universe certification, M37 was one of the target deep-sky objects located in Auriga.  I decided to go after this before the clouds hindered any observations throughout the evening.  As you can see on the star chart below, M37 is quite close to M36 and M38.  It was located between Beta Tauri (Elnath) the top horn of Taurus' head and Theta Aurigae, the shoulder of Auriga the charioteer.

M36, M37 and M38 Star Chart

I used the finderscope to center Beta Tauri and ensured the telescope was aligned.  I slowly slewed the telescope in the direction of the naked eye star Theta Aurigae while keeping my eye through the finderscope.  Within a few seconds I located a fuzzy patch of light through the finderscope and took a look through the main scope.  I had not found M37 but instead found M36.  I confirmed this observation by moving the scope down across the line between Beta Tauri and Theta Aurigae and found M37.

I went back to M36 to detail some of the characteristics of the Messier object.  M36 is an open cluster with several bright stars but particularly sparse.  I could perhaps view a few dozen stars comprising the entire cluster.  My observation log is provided below.  I did not sketch a picture as I will wait for the opportunity to use my 11" catadioptric telescope to take a long exposure photograph for my records.  The transparency in my record below is low because it was fairly cloudy and thin clouds were covering Auriga at the time of the observation.

M36 Observation Record

In future posts this week I will outline the logs from M37 and M38 which contain more stars than M36.  The 14 day weather forecast is not optimistic for visual astronomy.  It indicates it will be cold, cloudy and snowy.  Hopefully the weather clears up in March and I can get some photographs of these Messier objects.