Astronomy

One of the many Open Clusters in Cassiopeia (which lies along the Milky Way), this is famed for its curious likeness to an alien figure. It was fairly easy to find with a finder chart from CdC and the shape was obvious at x40. Going up to x80 filled the FOV with the figure with the bright stars of its eyes standing out very brightly. I imagine I will return to this one time and time again.

I couldn't visit ET without paying a visit to one of the other curious Open Clusters. This one is in Orion and when I found it, revealed itself to look like an upside down '37'. An incredible sight! Another one to add to the 'comedy cluster' sky tour!

44, despite being lost in the LP (this should be an easy naked eye object as it was known to the Greek astronomers) was relatively easy to find with the help of a finder chart and a bit of luck. This cluster is huge and did not fit into the 25mm EP FOV. There were many stars, each shining brightly against the orangey background, most seemed to be arranged in small triangles.

Who would have thought that the Pole star would also be a double? This star has far too much going for it, somebody is going to have to curb its ego. Anyhoo, after moving my 'scope to get a better view of Cancer and redoing the polar align I decided to try this double out. It turned out to be a pretty tough split because the difference in brightness between the two is quite large. Coludn't split with x40, but just about got it at x80. At x200 it was an easy split although the dimmer star was often lost in the glare of the brighter one depending on where my eye was. Both stars appeared to be white. By this time the dew was starting to be a problem.