January 7th, 2011

Teaching an eight hour drive from five star restaurants and theaters, one would think that there would be nothing to do on a Friday night in northern Quebec but I beg to differ. My evening started around 5:00 pm when I brought my telescope to acclimatize itself to the cold. It was a respectable -19 ºC ( -2.2 ºF) which made the view outstanding and the comfort quite reasonable. The waxing crescent moon was quickly making it's way to the horizon and I knew I had little time to capture it on camera but since I had set up early, I was successful:

I took the time to look at Jupiter since it was high enough in the sky to show some details in the bands and gave me a very good opportunity to view Uranus as well. Usually hard to find, this gaseous planet was flirting extremely close to the brightest object in the sky (beside the moon) making it a very easy target. I knew it would be small and hard to differentiate from the stars around it but once my eyes settled on the "elusive one",.. I just knew.

Since it was still early and I was far from the inky blackness needed to chase subtle Messier objects, I made myself a lobster tail supper, rice and asparagus . I chased it down with a very respectable "Tutiac Côte de Bordeaux (2009)" and topped this all with an Espresso Americano".

At 9:00pm, I made my way back outside for a romp around Auriga and Orion. I started with my favourite M42 (the Orion Nebula) since I wanted to capture a better image. I did but I don't believe I was able to top last week's attempt:

I had seen this particular Messier so many times so redirected my telescope towards a new goal: I wanted to see the Crab Nebula (M1).

I looked and was successful but did not attempt to capture the moment on film. This nebula was a little more than a smudge of white in my telescope. There was absolutely no way that my camera could have captured the discreet cloud. Was I disappointed? Absolutely not! My eye had just caught a glimpse of something truly spectacular! My telescope showed a smudge but I saw a momentous supernova recorded in 1054. Yes, I was looking at a star that imploded 957 years ago!

(not my picture: celestiamotherlode.net)

I made a slight detour in Auriga for a quick look at M37 and 38 but was unsuccessful in uncovering M79 tucked at he bottom of Lepus. Unfortunately, the little globular cluster was flirting too close to the horizon for a good view.