Monday evening was an exceptionally clear night and I was able to do a lot of personal observing. There were two deep sky objects in Cancer that I wanted to check off my list before the constellation sunk into the twilight. I also personally dislike the constellation due to its fairly dim stars and wanted to be finished with it. Messier 67 was the first deep sky object I found.
Messier 67 is an open cluster that sits less than 2° West of Alpha Cancri. Unfortunately Alpha Cancri was not readily visible to the naked eye due to the urban light pollution we are familiar with in Calgary. I started with the naked eye stars ζ, ε and δ Hydrae that form the head of Hydra. Alpha Cancri and M67 are located just over 5° North of these stars. I used the red dot finder to center ε Hydrae in the 25mm telescope eyepiece and slowly moved my view North. Almost immediately an open cluster of stars appeared. I checked the surrounding area and determined I had indeed found M67. It was a beautiful open cluster that must have contained a few hundred stars. I measured the size of it to be approximately 25' which is slightly smaller than the accepted value of 30'. After I found the cluster I took the opportunity to take an image which is shown below.
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| Messier 67 |
I was glad this cluster was easy to find as it is the dimmer of the two Messier objects in Cancer. The Beehive Cluster (Messier 44) is much brighter and even outshines most of the stars in the constellation. An observing record of M67 is provided below.
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| M67 Observation Record |
The sky looks somewhat clear this evening and I hope to take the opportunity to find a few double stars that are on the Explore the Universe List. Jupiter will be at its biggest and brightest tomorrow so be sure to look toward the southeast to see it light up the sky. Hopefully the sporadic showers in the forecast don't cloud the sky over next week!
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