The Jewel Box - New Zealand

[moondog]

With a bright moon high up in the sky it wasn't easy to search for DSO's so I stuck to star clusters. I haven't been able to see the Jewel Box in any detail before so I put the WO ZS66 on the tripod and gave it a go. The Jewel Box is to the East and a bit higher than the Southern Cross.

First with the Russian 25mm Plossl giving about 16x mag. Could see a tight grouping of several stars some of which appeared to be different colours, surrounded by a swarm of dimmer stars. I guess about 35/40 - all looked to be white.

Swapped to the 7mm Lanth at about 56x and immediately saw a group of 7 or 8 stars showing obvious colour. There were 3 bluish coloured stars forming a triangle with a downward pointing apex. Running horizontally across the centre of the triangle were 4 stars, 3 bright and 1 dimmer. These stars appeared to be yellowish and at least one was a deep orange. I kept looking for several minutes as I kept trying to find all the coloured stars and give a count for the overall cluster.

A lot of star cluster names are not immediately obvious when you see them for the first time but this one's name is spot on!

I'll come back to this object when the moon has done a runner and see if I can find more coloured stars - and see if I change my mind about the colours. A fascinating object.

8)

MD

[algol]

how does it compare with the pleiades?

[moondog]

Algol - It's a much smaller object altogether. It only covers a fraction of the area of the Pleiades and has no nebulosity.

The Pleiades is a more immediately outstanding cluster. The Jewel Box is altogether more delicate, but, in its own way just as rewarding to observe. I couldn't really choose between them for Wow factor - they are both excellent clusters.

8)

MD

[algol]

sounds great MD. glad you got the wow factor. let us all know about any other wow factor objects

[centroid]

What are you using as a Star Chart down there John?

Dave

[moondog]

Dave - It's Starry Night on the laptop.

By now I know where I can find a few of the more obvious objects in NZ without a chart. Still a long way to go though !

8)

MD