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My first romp with the 2011 stars!


stolenfeather

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Tuesday, January 4th / 2011

The winter is the part of the year that offers me the best seats of the night. First of all, the darkness falls faster so I can actually be outside much sooner than any other times of the year. Furthermore, the constellations from early January to the beginning of March has the most spectacular sights! Unfortunately, this all being said, the winter holds a very dangerous enemy for me,... FROSTBITE! It's not really that it's cold out there once all dressed up (see picture at the bottom -- it was only -22 Celsius / -7.6 ºF that night) . It is more the combination of the temperature with the metallic tools I use. Not, made of plastic, the slightest touch to my telescope let's the cold seep in. If I take my gloves off to handle lenses, move the telescope, or try to capture pictures,... I feel the bite. Many times, I escape to the warmth of my house only to be faced with the pain of frostbitten fingers returning to their normal state. This is why I gave up trying to take pictures last night after many images came out blurry since I was fighting against the cold.

However, there was no way that I was staying inside! The sky had opened up completely with a new moon which meant that our natural satellite would not be shedding any light my way. I started my night by pointing my telescope towards NGC 1432 (M45). You might better know it as the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Easily spotted with the naked eye, I am always mesmerized by these hot blue stars giving off a hue that captures the imagination!

Since I was close to the constellation Orion and Auriga, I made a small detour to the star clusters M36, 37 and 38. These are pretty close together and can be found here:

20051111_M36_Kaart_tn.gif

M 42 was just a hop and a jump away so I dropped by for a visit. What is it about that particular Messier that makes me want to shout to everyone around, "Quick come and look!" I looked for NGC 2169 in the same constellation but my next door neighbours came home and decided to flash their car lights in my direction which basically stole my hard earned night vision. Oh well,...

Once more Jupiter was low to the horizon by the time I made it to it's location which did not give me the greatest image but I couldn't ignore the King of all the Roman gods now could I? So 5 Messiers and 1 planet.

Not bad for a night of viewing right? Now, if only my astro-chair was heated I would be in heaven!

IMG_0898.jpg

:icon_confused: Please excuse to blurriness of the last picture. I used the timer and it really didn't come out very well. :icon_confused:

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Like you said in reply to my report, looks like you had a very similar night to me.

-22! now that is cold. I can consider myself lucky as it was about +1 C when i was out (t-shirt weather).

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Thanks for coming by! T-shirt weather? I'll have to wait till May for that! Actually, where I am,.. it sometimes snows in June!

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