Steve’s Virtual Planet

Winter targets sans planets

These last few weeks have seen the gradual westward track of Jupiter. In the evening hours, Venus has been working it’s way easterly. They are always fun to explore. But the evening are much longer now, so, why not work on finding nice objects to look at once the planets have been thoroughly checked out. Hmmm, what to do!?!?

Well, check the Messier list first. A few choices there. And maybe a planetary nebula or two. Check. Galaxies? not much right now. How ’bout stars with color. Yep. Several of those to enjoy. Of course, there’s always the standby - double stars! You never run out of them. So, here goes.

First, the Messier objects - M79, the only globular up right now; M81, one of the few galaxies you can catch in suburban skies; M36, M37, M38 in Auriga, good wide angle objects for binoculars or low power scopes; M45, The Pleiades and the Hyades too, great wide open clusters that look good even in 7 power binoculars; And don’t forget M42, The Orion Nebula.

There’s Caldwell 59 (or NGC3242), The Ghost of Jupiter, a nice planetary in Hydra, about 30 degress south of Regulus. For colorful objects, there Hind’s Crimson Star, a very red carbon variable star about 8 degrees below Rigel; there’s also Betelgeuse, obviously orange at just about any magnification.

Finally for doubles, there’s Castor, Rigel, Mintaka, Alcor/Mizar, Algieba. Since winter time brings longer nights, you might as well hop around and visit some of these charmers. Whether they are old favorites or your catching up for the first time, they are all easy enough to catch even with a small scope and in suburban skies.