February 24, 2001

After nearly a month of bad weather, I was really anxious to get back out under the stars again. For that matter, I would just be glad to be able to see the stars again. After a week of ice and rain, the clouds finally began to disperse about an hour before sunset.

By the time the sun went down, the sky was almost completely clear, with a temperature of about 55F and a slight southerly breeze. The thin crescent moon looked like a giant fingernail clipping in the west. Superbright Venus stood guard above it, with Saturn and Jupiter trying to catch up. Beautiful!

I hurried home to get my equipment, but by the time I got there, the wind had started picking up. I quickly grabbed my telescope and binoculars and headed outside. I knew the conditions wouldn't last long.

A couple of weeks ago, on another cloudy day, I built a new tripod for my little telescope. The original tripod was a little wobbly under the weight of the telescope, so I attached my binoculars to it instead. The new tripod looks nice, but I was anxious for it to be tested under actual observing conditions. So I set it up, took aim, and began my observing session.

At 56x, I could barely split this pair, probably because of the windy conditions. Both components appeared yellowish. I couldn't increase the magnification further, due to the shaking and vibrations of the telescope.

Because of the wind, I decided to forego the telescope for the night and focus on binocular observing. I also wanted to get a good feel for how comfortable binoculars would be on a standard tripod and fork mount.

In my binoculars, dozens of stars are visible. The seven brightest ones stand out prominently, with a multitude of fainter ones interspersed throughout the cluster. The entire cluster easily fits within the field of view. One of the stars, Alcyone, particularly caught my attention because of a fainter star right next to it that made for a nice visual binary.

This cluster is absolutely gorgeous, with several small chains and patterns of stars. I never get tired of looking at it. With the naked eye (well, almost naked, since I do wear glasses), I could pick out six of the brightest stars (all but Pleione), so the seeing must've been fairly decent.

This cluster is much fainter than M45. In fact, the brighter stars of this cluster would be categorized as some of the fainter ones of M45. Even with binoculars, you can easily detect the beehive or house shape in the center of the cluster. With slightly averted vision, all three components of the visual triple star that comprises of the top of the roof were visible, as were the visual companions to the the two stars that form the bottom of the roof.

In all, about 25 stars were visible. Even though this is a nice cluster, I suggest that you look at it BEFORE you look at the Pleiades.

This large open cluster is almost too close to appreciate. Through a telescope, only small sections of the cluster can be seen at a time. Even in binoculars, the entire cluster won't fit into the field of view.

Besides the familiar V shape that makes up the head of Taurus, there are a few other interesting patterns of stars within the Hyades. My favorite is a little asterism near Aldebaran which consists of three double stars in a circle, forming a sort of triangle with the ends chopped off, similar to the triangular caution sign that you see on the back of farm equipment travelling down the road.

The wind was starting to pick up a little bit more by this time, so I zipped up my jacket and aimed my binoculars towards the Sword of Orion.

Although I don't think it is, the stars making up Orion's Sword appear as a loose open cluster through binoculars. Dozens of stars can be seen, grouped in pairs and triples. In fact, the stars in M42 and M43 appeared as a triple star with a faint glow of nebulosity surrounding them. I've seen better views of M42 through my binoculars on other nights, so I'll give it a try on another night.

At first glance, I was only able to detect the bright primary star of s Ori. But by using averted vision, the double S761 could be seen. A second component of s Ori seemed to pop in and out of view, but with the windy conditions, it could have been my imagnination.

The glaringly bright disk of Jupiter could easily be seen, as well as the four Galilean moons. Two of the moons were on one side of the gas giant, about equally spaced apart from the planet itself. On the opposite side of the planet, one moon was in close (closer than either of the planets on the other side), and the fourth moon was out quite a distance. Jupiter itself was a featureless ball.

Situated a little lower in the sky than nearby Jupiter, Saturn has a definite yellow-orange coloring and oval shape. The rings couldn't actually be separated from the planet, however.

Two round fuzzy balls were easily detected, with a few bright stars in each cluster being resolved. This makes a nice view in binoculars, but they look a little better in a telescope, due to the greater number of stars that can be resolved.

Through binoculars, this is a really impressive and big cluster. A lot of bright stars are visible. I think that if the Pleiades was about twice as close to us, it would probably look something like this. The cluster is rather elongated, and looks much better through binoculars than a telescope. a Per is definitely the brightest star of the group, and many other stars (a couple of dozen) are about as bright as the brightest Pleiades members.

M46 and M47 are pretty close to each other, visually at least. I like to think of them as the southern version of the Double Cluster. I easily found these two clusters by extending the lines indicating the two legs of Canis Major above the dog until they intersect. The clusters are really close to that point.

M47 is much brighter than its neighbor M46. It appears to be about 10 stars visible through binoculars. It's not a bad-looking cluster, but smaller than many of the other clusters I viewed tonight.

M46, on the other hand, was barely detectable as a faint smudge on the background sky. In fact, I had to stare at it for a couple of minutes to convince myself that it wasn't just a small cloud. It begged for more magnification, so I grabbed my telescope and took a peek at both of them again.

At 35x, M47 is definitely an open cluster, fitting nicely in the field of view. At least 30 stars were detected, of varying brightnesses. The cluster is much more impressive at this magnification. If a Per is a larger version of the Pleiades, then M47 is a smaller version. It has about the same proportion of bright vs. dim stars.

M46 is much dimmer, but at 35x, it too was obviously an open cluster. Since I seem to be comparing clusters, then if M47 was a small version of the Pleiades, M46 would be a small version of the Beehive. The stars are fairly faint and dispersed pretty loosely. I counted close to 20 stars directly, with more visible with averted vision. M46 actually appears larger than M47, but the faint stars make it much less impressive.

This is a nice, fairly bright cluster. It has several bright stars, and is actually pretty compact for an open cluster. It's nearly globular shape makes it a nice simulation of what some of the globular clusters might look like in a telescope of larger aperture. Perhaps 40 stars are visible at 35x. At 56x, the contrast improves, but the wind makes it difficult to resolve many of the stars.

The wind was really getting fierce now, and the temperature was dropping into the 30s. Well, at least I'd gotten a good hour of observing in. It felt great!