Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Many purchase telescopes and once that the moon has been spotted or a couple of chance views of planets, the excitement wanes, the equipment is soon forgotten and collects dust somewhere in the backrooms. We all want to see the planets don't we? I admit to jumping up and down upon seeing Saturn through my eyepiece and I also confess doing a "dance of joy" upon seeing Jupiter the first time but that's not where my interest lies. I always want to look farther than my own backyard, my own solar system that is! My passion lies in deep space objects such as the one I discovered on this night.

I had little time since school related responsibilities kept me glued to my computer for most of the week and this night was no different. Well, yes it was. The night was warmer than usual boasting a very comfortable -6 degrees and the sky conditions looked good. I worried at first about the presence of humidity and wondered about condensation issues with the scope but they turned out minimal in the end.

Since I didn't have much time, I decided to channel my efforts into finding a new Messier object. Usually, I have little trouble finding Charles' little fuzzy collection of wonders but this winter is a little different because of the construction project down the road. Since this major building is very costly to the community, the baseball flood lights remain lit for the whole night. The light pollution is immense making most of the more remote stars disappear into the light.

I used Sirius in the constellation Canis Major and Procyon in Canis Minor to star hop towards the majestic open cluster of M47 ( NGC 2422) that you see to your left. This was no easy feat since these two locations aren't too close to each other but created a very neat "L" to my desired location. There are times that I wish my mount was more of an equatorial one since I would be able to discover the stars with the help of celestial coordinates but then again,.... I do believe in a challenge! After a couple of tries, the Messier object came into view!

M47 is an open cluster which boasts an age of 78 million years. It is not as spellbinding as globular clusters since it does not have many stars but really distinguishes itself from other deep space (Messier) objects because of the brightness of some of its members.

Of course the image found at the top is not my picture since my camera and telescope can't handle this attention to detail. After making my notes, I swerved the telescope to face our red neighbour Mars. I have to say that I admire this planet more when seen with the naked eye since its ruby like texture disappears with magnification to a dull red. Jupiter was also out but was not very cooperative with my camera. Venus, however, out for a stroll at the beginning of the evening was more than willing to show its wonders to all who wanted to see:

You can clearly see the phase in the picture at the top and the reason why it is so bright at this time of the month.

Although the sky conditions were pristine, I was unable to stay much longer since I had 6 classes to tend the following day at school. The weekend is upon us but this will not be very helpful when it comes to me escaping outside since thick clouds are expected to be visiting for the whole weekend!

Although this night offered me little time for serious stargazing and was pretty much over in 30 minutes (done sparsely as I tended to my teaching duties) I consider 3 planets and one deep sky object nothing to scoff at! Now I wait once more for clear skies,...

Isabelle