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After searching unsuccessfully for GC M79 in Lepus Saturday morning with my ST80 (too low in my LP schmutz), I slewed east and spent some time admiring M41. I then slewed farther east toward Winter Albireo (145 CMa). Along the way, I came across this striking little group, centered on HD 37643.
After I had centered on 145, two sats zoomed through my FOV from west to east. These were unusual in that they were quite bright - at least third magnitude and reminded me of a pair of fighters with one leading and one trailing at the lead's 4 o'clock position. No nav lights visible though. Heavens Above shows Starlink-2645 and 2405 passing over at that time at mag +3.5, but their tracks were nowhere near that close to each other. I don't want to say it was aliens, but it must have been aliens. :wink:
Anyway, Winter Albireo lives up to its nickname. Very pretty, well-separated gold and blue pair with a very strong resemblance to the real Albireo.
Wrapped up with a little naked eye observing while lounging on my deck furniture.
============================================================================= I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do. =============================================================================
AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
A very nice outing, and thanks for the image of NGC 2017. Though it was originally listed in the NGC as an open cluster, it is generally acknowledged as an asterism of unrelated stars. This group was discovered by John Herschel on Dec 11, 1835. He described it as a "fine clustering group of large [bright] stars."
The asterism is a group of six stars ranging from 6th to 11th mag. I see your image captured five of them. The dimmest is just to the southeast of the red star above HD 37643, and northeast of HD 37643 - forming a triangle with the two brighter stars. I observed this one back in Jan of 2017 from a suburban location just south of the equator using my ED80. Having it at higher elevation there certainly helped.
Well done Olen and you get my vote for a VROD.
Alan
Scopes: Astro Sky 17.5 f/4.5 Dob || Apertura AD12 f/5 Dob || Zhumell Z10 f/4.9 Dob ||
ES AR127 f/6.5 || ES ED80 f/6 || Apertura 6" f/5 Newtonian
Mounts: ES Twilight-II and Twilight-I
EPs: AT 82° 28mm UWA || TV Ethos 100° 21mm and 13mm || Vixen LVW 65° 22mm ||
ES 82° 18mm || Pentax XW 70° 10mm, 7mm and 5mm || barlows
Filters (2 inch): DGM NPB || Orion Ultra Block, O-III and Sky Glow || Baader HaB
Primary Field Atlases: Uranometria All-Sky Edition and Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas
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"Astronomers, we look into the past to see our future." (me)
"Seeing is in some respect an art, which must be learnt." (William Herschel)
"What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean." (Sir Isaac Newton)
"No good deed goes unpunished." (various)
“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?” (Scarecrow, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
That's a beautiful little asterism Olen, with the blue and gold stars! Just did a search for it on Stellarium to get its location - I'll need to check it out the next time I'm doing an early morning session.
Good to see you using your ST80 - haven't used mine in a while (over 2 yrs.) so I need to get mine back outside.
Scopes: Reflectors, refractors, and 1 catadioptric. Ranging in aperture from 50mm to 150mm.
Nice sweet report Olen and as nominated, congratulations on attaining the VROD for today!
-Michael Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50 Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl Camera: ZWO ASI 120 Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs Latitude: 48.7229° N
Hello Olen. A very nice observing report from you here. It looks like a very nice session with some great DSO targets and also the Winter Albireo. Thanks for your well written and fun read report Olen and congratulations on receiving the well deserved TSSVROD Award today.
Marshall
Sky-Watcher 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain on motorized Multimount
Orion Astroview 120ST f/5 Refractor on EQ3 mount
Celestron Comet Catcher 140mm f/3.64 Schmidt-Newtonian on alt-az mount
Celestron Omni XLT150R f/5 Refractor on CG4 mount with dual axis drives.
Orion 180mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on CG5-GT Goto mount.
Orion XT12i 12" f/4.9 Dobsonian Intelliscope.
Kamakura 7x35 Binoculars and Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars. ZWO ASI 120MC camera.
>)))))*>
