Asterisms -- Do You Want To Know Where They All Are?

[JayTee]

I found a download link to the Asterism section of the Deep-Sky Hunters Field Guide. I've always been intrigued by this chapter as an old friend Dana Patchick is responsible for quite a few of the discoveries of these asterisms.

Here is the publicly accessible portion and then below that is the download link for this chapter of the Deep-Sky Hunters Field Guide.

https://vdocuments.mx/dsh-field-guide-p ... tml?page=1

https://vdocuments.mx/download/dsh-fiel ... risms.html

Have fun with this.

Cheers,

[kt4hx]

Thanks for the links JT. I've had this downloaded for a few years now, and have had some fun with it off and on. Particularly when I was still doing work related travel internationally and could only take smaller apertures with me. The list is quite extensive for sure and while some have been discovered visually, many are found looking at DSS images.

I recall you commenting about your friendship with Dana when I posted a report that had one of his objects from the list. It is unfortunate that many observers ignore asterisms for the most part. I know in some cases its because they are not "official" objects. But in reality there are many that are richer and more attractive than some open clusters. In fact, there are many asterisms in the NGC/IC catalogues because the discovers described them as clusters before we knew about proper motion studies to determine which were indeed bound clusters of stars. But since those objects do have official designations, they are pursued. Many folks miss out on some fine stellar groupings by not looking at lists of asterisms.

[StarBru]

Thanks JT! I have scanned the skies many times over the years with rich field telescopes delighting in the asterisms I happened across, but not knowing what they were catalogued as, or for that matter, not even knowing until about 8 years ago that they were even designated as asterisms!

[pakarinen]

Way cool! I was just wandering around with my 80mm the other night looking at random star fields. I'd guess some of the patterns are on this list. Thanks!

[Bigzmey]

Nice reference JT! Asterisms are fun and LP-friendly targets, definitely should not be overlooked.

[SkyHiker]

Maybe I don't know what an asterism is, but when searching for Pegasus, Andromeda, Big Dipper, Southern Cross, Teapot, I find nothing.

A spreadsheet that can be sorted on RA and DEC coordinates would be useful. I am curious if my "Coal Scuttle" asterism that I use to eyeball the NCP is part of a known asterism, but searching the table is too much work.

[JayTee]

Well, Henk, you have given me an idea for one of my AI expert sons (who are here for Christmas) to render this list into a sortable spreadsheet. I'll let you know what happens.

[Thefatkitty]

Thanks JT! I'll have to look into some of those if it ever clears...!!

I remember a number of years ago stumbling across the Coathanger asterism. I had no idea of its existence, and was amazed at how much it looked like a coathanger. Then I checked Stellarium and did some looking. Sure enough...
I've come across a few others, but thanks for the list. I'd be curious too to see what your son can do with it as well!

All the best,

[SkyHiker]

Well, Henk, you have given me an idea for one of my AI expert sons (who are here for Christmas) to render this list into a sortable spreadsheet. I'll let you know what happens.

The sorting is not too difficult. Copy and paste the table into NotePad, replace "," with ".", replace "AST" with ",", save as .csv. Open in Excel, use "Text to columns" to convert the 2nd column to a text table, format the first 6 columns as numbers. Then you can use Excel to sort on RA and DEC attributes using a first-sort, second sort etcetera column. That way you can find what asterisms are near given coordinates.

[messier 111]

thx for the links .

[helicon]

Thanks JT! I'll have to look into some of those if it ever clears...!!

I remember a number of years ago stumbling across the Coathanger asterism. I had no idea of its existence, and was amazed at how much it looked like a coathanger. Then I checked Stellarium and did some looking. Sure enough...
I've come across a few others, but thanks for the list. I'd be curious too to see what your son can do with it as well!

All the best,

Ditto for me. Once I was panning around with 10 x 50 binos and I saw this thing that looked like a coat hanger. I immediately thought "Hey that looks like a coat hanger." And it turns out it was. What I think of as a bigger asterism is the constellation Triangulum, it's always distintive as an isoceles triangle. The Hawaiians called Scorpius Maui's fish hook, which is probably more apt than a scorpion...

[kt4hx]

Thanks JT! I'll have to look into some of those if it ever clears...!!

I remember a number of years ago stumbling across the Coathanger asterism. I had no idea of its existence, and was amazed at how much it looked like a coathanger. Then I checked Stellarium and did some looking. Sure enough...
I've come across a few others, but thanks for the list. I'd be curious too to see what your son can do with it as well!

All the best,

Ditto for me. Once I was panning around with 10 x 50 binos and I saw this thing that looked like a coat hanger. I immediately thought "Hey that looks like a coat hanger." And it turns out it was. What I think of as a bigger asterism is the constellation Triangulum, it's always distintive as an isoceles triangle. The Hawaiians called Scorpius Maui's fish hook, which is probably more apt than a scorpion...

Indeed, one can look at the main stars of constellations such as Triangulum, Cygnus, Crux, Ursa Major & Minor and Pegasus as an asterism. There are asterisms that are simply known by a nickname. Then there are a great number more known by the name of their discoverer with a number, similar to the Messier list of objects. Then you have a larger majority that are simply known by the catalogue designation of their brightest star. Some are bright and obvious, while many more are moderately to quite dim, and small in angular extent. Many of those discovered while looking at deep sky images can be better fare for larger apertures. They do sort of run the gamut, just like any DSO object category.

[helicon]

Thanks JT! I'll have to look into some of those if it ever clears...!!

I remember a number of years ago stumbling across the Coathanger asterism. I had no idea of its existence, and was amazed at how much it looked like a coathanger. Then I checked Stellarium and did some looking. Sure enough...
I've come across a few others, but thanks for the list. I'd be curious too to see what your son can do with it as well!

All the best,

Ditto for me. Once I was panning around with 10 x 50 binos and I saw this thing that looked like a coat hanger. I immediately thought "Hey that looks like a coat hanger." And it turns out it was. What I think of as a bigger asterism is the constellation Triangulum, it's always distintive as an isoceles triangle. The Hawaiians called Scorpius Maui's fish hook, which is probably more apt than a scorpion...

Indeed, one can look at the main stars of constellations such as Triangulum, Cygnus, Crux, Ursa Major & Minor and Pegasus as an asterism. There are asterisms that are simply known by a nickname. Then there are a great number more known by the name of their discoverer with a number, similar to the Messier list of objects. Then you have a larger majority that are simply known by the catalogue designation of their brightest star. Some are bright and obvious, while many more are moderately to quite dim, and small in angular extent. Many of those discovered while looking at deep sky images can be better fare for larger apertures. They do sort of run the gamut, just like any DSO object category.

Also, there is the Corvus Stargate, by Messier 104 the Sombrero Galaxy

[kt4hx]

Ditto for me. Once I was panning around with 10 x 50 binos and I saw this thing that looked like a coat hanger. I immediately thought "Hey that looks like a coat hanger." And it turns out it was. What I think of as a bigger asterism is the constellation Triangulum, it's always distintive as an isoceles triangle. The Hawaiians called Scorpius Maui's fish hook, which is probably more apt than a scorpion...

Indeed, one can look at the main stars of constellations such as Triangulum, Cygnus, Crux, Ursa Major & Minor and Pegasus as an asterism. There are asterisms that are simply known by a nickname. Then there are a great number more known by the name of their discoverer with a number, similar to the Messier list of objects. Then you have a larger majority that are simply known by the catalogue designation of their brightest star. Some are bright and obvious, while many more are moderately to quite dim, and small in angular extent. Many of those discovered while looking at deep sky images can be better fare for larger apertures. They do sort of run the gamut, just like any DSO object category.

Also, there is the Corvus Stargate, by Messier 104 the Sombrero Galaxy

Indeed so, or known by its more formal designation of Pothier 11. In the DSH asterism list this one is listed first by its brightest star HD 109875, and then by its discoverer Pothier as number 11 in his list of asterisms. It does not mention "Stargate." The list stays away from nicknames for asterisms. There are of course many web pages where one can find the more well known ones by their nicknames. Most of the brighter and more obvious ones do have nicknames. But those are only found in the DSH list by the brightest star and a discovered ID if known. Of course they also list position, angular size and constellation. For my use, some years ago, I sorted my copy of the DSH list by constellation, which helped me to organize it better for my purposes.

FYI, the planetarium software, C2A, contains the asterisms list from DSH as well as the one from SAC (Saquaro Astronomy Club). The latter one tends to utilize nicknames more so. Searching in C2A for an asterism can be a little confusing at first, as you have to either put in the brightest star designation from DSH or the nickname for the SAC ones. You cannot put in the discoverer ID from DSH as it doesn't recognize that. But it is nice to have a program that plots the asterisms if one is interested in hunting for them. Myself I have observed over 450 asterisms in the DSH list over the years. The vast majority were seen while I was traveling with smaller scopes. It certainly added a new dynamic to my observing and travels.

C2A can be found here: http://www.astrosurf.com/c2a/english/download.htm