Went hunting for
Messiers in Auriga tonight. It was not a very clear night, with thin haze throughout, occasionally interrupted by streaks of thicker cloud. Still,
M38,
36 and
37 are open clusters, not fuzzies, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Found M38 without too much difficulty. Looks more like a star than the letter 'pi', to me.
I then fumbled around for some time looking for M36.
Eventually I found a compact open cluster about where I expected to find M36, but on reflection, now, I may have had my bearings crossed. Star-hopping in tonight's sky was very difficult, and Auriga is so densely packed that I may have overshot M36 and instead seen M37.
Two things cause my suspician (well, three things):
1.) The diameter of the mystery cluster seemed larger than I expected, and looked a lot closer to the diameter of M38 than I imagined. (Both M38 and the "supposed M36" fit nicely in the field of my 10mm Plossl.) M36 should be a lot smaller than the other two, if I recall correctly.
2.) I checked some photos of the three clusters on line, and what I saw looked a tiny bit more like M37 than M36. Of course, I'm not positive about this.
3.) After thinking I had found M38 and M36, I went looking for M37, supposedly the "showpiece" cluster in Auriga, the "Winter Salt and Pepper". Now, my feet were going numb from cold, and the cloud cover was getting worse, and I was thinking about when I had to get up the next morning (I started observations around 10.30pm local time, and only just ended a little after 1 this morning), so my patience wasn't what it might be. I eventually gave up. It seemed strange, still, that I had found the other two, and yet had no luck finding the "showpiece" one. Yeah, I didn't give it the same effort, and I was tired (am tired), but I did kinda expect it to be a bit easier to find.
Anyway, I'm not counting this as "seen". So for tonight, I can only really claim to have seen and identified M38.
Since this blog is not as old as my hobby (which only got serious last August), I'll do a quick Messier recap:
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Andromeda Galaxy through 7x50 binocs, and through a 6" f/8 dob (25mm and 10mm plossls).
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Pleides naked eye, 7x50 binocs, and through the dob w/ the 32mm plossl (both with and without LP filter, looking for the nebulosity and eventually seeing it).
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Orion Nebula through the binocs and through the dob (32mm, 25mm, 10mm, plus all with and without the 2x barlow, both with and without broadband filter).
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Ring Nebula through the dob (32mm, 25mm, both with the 2x barlow, plus the 10mm, all with and without the filter).
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Crab Nebula (just barely!) using the dob (32mm, 25mm, both with the filter).
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M38 using the dob (32mm, 25mm, 10mm).
Of course, I've seen a bunch of other things, many before I knew what I was looking at. Especially liked the double cluster, Jupiter (best when a moon's shadow crossed it), Saturn and the Moon.
I'm in no real rush, and I don't get to go out and look up that often, plus the light-pollution here is terrible. I'd kinda like to ID about a dozen Messiers between now and March. During those months I'm wandering about Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Orion, Canis Major, Puppis, Monoceros, and Lepus. Oh, and Lyra, I suppose. I caught the Ring Nebula, there on a very rare, clear evening in which the kids had finished dinner very early and had an hour before bedtime or so. I'd like another such chance to go after the other Messier in that constellation, but we'll see.
Time for bed.
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