Naked eye targets in Scorpious and Sagittarius

[pepitoz]

Here are a few naked eye targets in Scorpious and Sagittarius for those wondering what to do:

Low in the south are two bright zodiac constellations-Scorpius and Sagittarius.

The main part of Scorpius looks like a fish hook-this is the sting of the Scorpion, while the three stars to it's northwest are the claws.

The brightest star in Scorpius is Antares-it has a distinct red color. Antares is a red supergiant 550 light years away. It has a dim companion 3 arcseconds from it, but as you can guess, you need optical help to see it.

Southeast of the top star of the claws (Beta Scorpii or Graffias) is a pair of 4th mag stars knows as Omega 1(west) and Omega 2 Scorpii. They are separated by about 15 arcminutes, so they are easy to split. They are only an optical pair-similar to most naked eye doubles-Omega 1 is about 200 light years, while it's friend is 400.

At the tip of the sting are a few interesting objects. Iota 1 and Iota 2 are nice pair of stars-the first being 3rd mag, while the second being 5th. Both of them are quite far away-more than 2000 light year-but Iota 2 is a bit further, making this double an optical pair. Iota 1 is a  white supergiant that is incredibly luminous-30 000 time the luminosity of the Sun. No life could ever exist on such a star.

Another nice pair are Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii-a wide optical pair. Both are significantly brighter and larger than the Sun. They are sometimes known as

the ''Cat's eye'', which refers to the way they look like.

To the north and northeast are two Messier open clusters-M6 and M7. Both seem to the naked eye as dim pufs.

M7 was discovered in the 1st century by greek astronomer Ptolemy, who described it as a nebula. It was later put by Messier into his catalog of ''fake comets''.

M6 might have been discoverd by Ptolemy too, but that's not so sure. The official discovery date is 1654-M6 was found by an italian astronomer and later put in the Messier catalog.

The other zodiac constellation in the area is Sagittarius. It's brightest stars seem to make the shape of a teapot-the handle being on the left with the spout to the right. Sagittarius is possibly one of the best constellations in the entire night sky-it contains more Messier objects than any other constellation. This is because the galactic centre is in Sagittarius-when we look towards it, we are gazing at the full glory of the Milky Way-where most of the open clusters, globulars and nebulae are.

The first object in Sagittarius is our home galaxy. Through light poluted skies it is invisible, but on a good dark night, it is amazing. This is a case where eyes give a better view than a telescope.

A great object is M8, the Lagoon-an emission nebula. It seems like a bright patch northwest of the top of the teapot. Close to it is M20-The Trifid nebula, also visible to the naked eye, but harder than M8.

North of the teaspot, past a 4th mag star called Mu Sagittarius, is a bright patch, which looks similar to M8-the Sagittarius star cloud, or M24. This area, because it isn't obstructed by dark clouds, is incredibly rich in stars, but they can't be resolved with only your eyes. Nonetheless, it is a great sight.

Sagittarius and Scorpion are amazing! Check these targets out while you can!

[cotterless45]

By jinks ! Lovely informative report. We get Antares and the lovely double of Graffias.

There's another "double double" at zeta Scorpii .

If they turned off all the town lights, the southern sky would be darker from here under,

Clear skies,

Nick.

[swamp thing]

Nice write up.

Naked eye astronomy is one area I'm just starting to really test myself on.

It's kinda strange. We spend so much time looking through telescopes that we run the risk of missing the night sky.

Enjoy yourselves out there

[triton1]

Wish I could embrase the south

[Sandraj]

Brilliant post for people like me, thanks for posting, I found it very interesting.