m42

[freeflyjay]

Just been out for a couple of hours, first time in about 2 months due to the weather, quite a good short session, added a couple of messiers, m36 and 37 (m37 is quite nice though the 10" dob), saw a really bright meteor close to gemini and another nice view of jupiter, once orion had got high enough above my shed to allow me to view, thought i`d revisit m42 as not been able to see it since i first got my scope back in feburary, got a great view and could make out a bit of colour, i was looking at the central stars, now i thought there were supposed to be 3, but the bottom left one (as seen though the dob) seems to have a companion (quite hard to make out) is this a double star, or have i just discovered a newly formed star in the nebula.

[VigdisVZ]

Thats a nice session you had there.

The trapezium in M42 easily shows 4 stars, you can get 6 stars under extreme conditions.

[freeflyjay]

thanks for that vigdis, only my 2nd visit to m42, thought there were just the 3 and thats all i saw last time, kinda throw me a bit when i found 4, gonna have to look harder then to find the other 2 then.

[Adrian lord]

I've just got in from a session on M42 and saw ABCD easily but it was E and F I was after. Thought I got a hint of them at different times but no clear cut observations. This was with the 4". Good views of the nebulosity.

Rest of time spent on M1, 35, 36, 37, 38 and NGC 1647. And Jupiter, of course.

[m_j_lyons]

I can easily split 4 of the 6 at 110x using my 10" dob...going to 220x opens all 6 if I remember correctly. It's been a while since I went that deep in the Trapezium.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

[Adrian lord]

Thanks m-i-l that's good to gauge.