January 2023

January 2023

Happy New Year! The weather has been a little crazy, but I was still able to get my telescope out a few times. Let’s kick off with a part of one of my favorite star clusters with nebula—The Pleiades. Alcyone is the brightest of the “seven sisters” in this cluster and it really shines blue. Love it!

I was able to spot three planets this month, and depending on the lens I was using, I got different views. Here are two of Jupiter showing its rings. The largest Jupiter was taken with a Barlow Lens, which can be inserted between the telescope and my camera and allows the image to be 2.5 times larger. The other two Jupiter shots show four of its moons circling the planet.

Here is Mars using the Barlow Lens.

Uranus is pretty small in my telescope. One measure of distance in astronomy is the Astronomical Unit (AU). One AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun (93,000,000 miles). Mars is about 1.5 AU, Jupiter is about 5.2 AU, Saturn about 9.5 AU, and Uranus is about 19.1 AU from the Sun. The farther things are apart, the smaller they appear. So, I feel pretty good about spotting Uranus and a few of its 27 moons, shown in the insert. I’m looking forward to seeing if I can spot Neptune, which is about 30 AU from the sun, when it gets a little higher in my sky later this year.

The Constellation Orion is high in the South early in the evening and is such a treat. It is one of the most recognizable constellations, with its belt and two bright stars: Betelgeuse and Rigel. If you haven’t seen it this winter, do yourself a favor. Right now it is in the southern sky in the early evening. Below the belt are a series of stars and nebula, that hang like a sword from the belt, the largest of which is the Orion Nebula. M 43 (de Mairan’s Nebula) sits on the top of Orion’s Nebula, M 42, like a motorcycle helmet.

With a focal reducer lens, I captured a couple of areas of M 42, including what I call the “Puppy,” with and without stars. I love the wispy nebula clouds!

Above de Mairan’s Nebula is M 1977, the Running Man Nebula, shown with and without the stars. The colors are just amazing.

Below M 42 Is M 1980, a star with nebulosity referred to as the Lost Jewel of Orion. And above NGC 1977 is a star cluster sometimes called the Coal Sack Nebula, NGC 1981.

Another cool object in Orion is NGC 1999. It was thought to be a dark patch of dust and gas that blocked the light of variable star V380 Orionis, but new data suggests that whatever blocks the light may be something denser than dust and gas—there’s another astronomical mystery to solve! A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth changes over time. It might be a change in how much light the star puts out, or something may be partially blocking the light. The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) has been collecting data on variable stars since 1911, with most of the observations being done by amateur astronomers. It is one of the ways that amateur astronomers contribute to the science of Astronomy.

And finally, above the Running Man Nebula in the sword are a couple of very cool Nebula. First is the Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. The bright star, Alnitak, is so bright that its light bounces around inside the telescope and makes “donuts” in the image! I can see at least four donuts….can you spot them? Near the Flame Nebula is the Horsehead Nebula, B 33. Alnitak’s light shows up in the one B 33 photo as a blue stream. The Horsehead Nebula is a dark nebula, which is made up of dust and gas that blocks the light behind it.

I was using my Barlow lens on the Moon when it was three days before being full. The dark plain in the top of the photo is called Mare Humorum and is Latin for the Sea of Moisture. Moisture? Just west of Mare Humorum are a trio of craters that line up—they caught my eye. So, I did a little research: It turns out the craters are named after Henrys! Henry Freres was a French Astronomer. The Henry Crater was named after Joseph Henry, a 19th Century Physicist born in the USA, who discovered induction and invented the electrical relay and electrical engine. Henry Cavendish was an English chemist and physicist who discovered hydrogen. Go Henrys!!!! These are my guys!

And finally, Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF). I got up early twice to set up my telescope and capture these photos that were taken about 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. The first was taken in Bootes Constellation, the second was taken when the comet was closer to the Earth and brighter, when the comet was near the intersection of Bootes, Corona Borealis, Hercules and Draco Constellations. I was only able to take a two-minute exposure, as the comet moves at a different rate than my telescope tracks the stars, and a longer exposure would have shown a distorted looking comet. It is still up in the northern sky early in the evening as I write this. If you download the free planetarium app, Stellarium, on your phone, just do a search for C 2022 E3 (ZTF) and it will point to it on the sky map. Hold your phone up in the sky and an arrow will lead you to where it is. Then get your binoculars out and scan that area for the green fuzzy ball.

Until next month, Clear Skies–Hank