Auriga

[david r]

Despite a less than promsing early evening the sky cleared and i had my first views of the open clusters M36.M37 and M38 in Auriga .stunning with binoculars , sights for the future with a scope.

David

[Taff]

Hi David' the open clusters are nice to look at with binoculars and a telescope.Mark

[Talitha]

Glad your sky cleared out, David.. the Auriga clusters certainly are lovely.

[iamjulian]

Hi David, I got my first look at them through the scope last week. Will be interested to hear which you liked best. M37 was the star of the show for me. Hundreds of stars but even with a modest 6" aperture you could resolve a good number of them.

[david r]

M37 through binoculars is more impressive,the number of stars and the brightness of the centre core really stand out,also it appears slightly more isolated in the star field.

David.

[dobserver]

I think M37 is the best of the three objects through a scope too - it appears much larger than M36 and has more contrast than M38. I saw these for the first time last week and I enjoy flitting between them. There is another open cluster just below and to the right of M38 too - I think it is NGC 1907. It looks very similar to M38 in size and brightness - I was hopping between it and M38 for some time just to convince myself I was looking at two different objects. I wonder why Charles Messier didn't include this cluster in his list?

Steph

[ZOG]

I love the Auriga clusters, but like many others, M37 is my favourite.