NOVA Summary: February 2017

The sky was clear most of the day but as we started toward the observatory a large mass of clouds started to move in.  When we arrived, there were a few patches of sky open around Orion and Auriga.  I came prepared with a list of target objects that I wanted to find with my manual scope.  While Auriga was still cloud free I found M37 (19:30), an open cluster of many faint stars.  Five minutes later the bright but sparse M36 (19:35) was logged as it is located very close to M37.  Another twenty minutes passed and I was able to find M38 (19:52), a particularly faint open cluster adjacent to M37.

As the clouds rolled in we had a presentation on logging deep-sky objects with a follow up lesson on finderscopes.  By the end of the lesson the clouds had completely vanished and we were back out on our scopes.  M35 (20:46) in Gemini was found; an open cluster near the North twin's foot.  Our instructor indicated we should try to find M79 in Lepus before it went away for the year.  It was particularly easy as Lepus provided guide stars directly to the only globular cluster I found in the evening (21:03).  After playing around Lepus I decided to head East of Canis Major to find a couple more Messier objects.  M47 (21:08) and M46 (21:16) are about one eyepiece field of view away from each other.  If I had realized how close they were it would not have taken me ten minutes between logging them.

I had the opportunity to use the domed telescope and pointed it at the easy target of M42 -- The Orion Nebula (20:50).  An OIII was on the 31mm Luminos eyepiece and the nebula was amazing.  M43 -- The de Mairan Nebula (20:50) was very obvious under these dark skies and correct filter.  These Messier objects are so close to each other they fit in the same eyepiece field of view.

After my small Messier marathon adventure I spent some time with the binoculars and found a few unnamed open clusters in Cassiopeia.  Kemble's Cascade was found in a southerly direction from Cassiopeia.  When I went back to my telescope I accidentally slew it onto the Double Cluster which provided a great view.  Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to take a photograph of any of the Messier Objects viewed today but I did take a picture of the Double Cluster back on November 6, 2016 shown below.

Double Cluster (Caldwell 14, NGC869 & NGC884)

My last target was the most difficult.  I decided to try for the comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova.  I spent about thirty minutes combing the skies around Coma Berenices with no luck.  Some of the astrophotographers had located the comet and were trying to laser point them to us.  After another fifteen minutes and help from the laser pointers I found a foggy looking blue star.  This was the comet.  It certainly was not an amazing sight but the victory of the long fight to find it was worth it.

Over the next few days I hope to log some of these observations formally and address the intricacies of them.  If you are ever interested in a night out under the stars finding great objects, keep posted for the next NOVA meeting down at the observatory.