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[atomant]

Crisp, clean, bone-chilling Winter skies is best time to observe open clusters.
Unfortunately, this mild winter has seen few and far between.

Break finally came this past weekend. With invite from Paulie, headed out to Conway Observatory in Lowell, IN, just an hour from ChiTown.

I picked up a used Orion 6in Newtonian over the holidays.
Had a trial run during last month's warm spell at Adler.
Was anxious to try it under darker skies.
I was not disappointed.
At f/5, exposures would be short and sweet.
Armed with the Nikon D5000 entry level DSLR, a bunch of hand warmers and large McD's coffee, off to the tour, we go.

Note the image scale of the objects.

Bookending the sky, we start with a cluster at the tip of the bull's horns, Pleiades, M45.
Usually, the harbinger of Winter, this large open cluster is heading down toward the Chicago light dome.

120sec @ iso1600, 750mm

At the opposite side of the sky, we have a loose open cluster, Beehive, M44, ringing in the coming Spring.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

Naked eye objects. Also very cool views with binoculars.
High powered telescopes don't do justice to these two.
As you can see, the 6in Newt at 750mm focal length barely fit them.

There's also open clusters that fit not just one, but two in a scope view. The most famous, Double Cluster, is one.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

At the foot of Gemini [see Dave F video], we find the giant M35 and the wispy ngc2158.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

Next is series of open clusters in Auriga, starting with the one inside the "baseball plate", M38 and it's tiny companion, ngc1907.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

Moving along, we find M36.
Not sure what that little fuzz at the right is?!?

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

Winter's answer to Summer's M11 Wild Duck Cluster, M37.
Just very sweet!

30sec @ iso 1600, 750mm

Not to confuse with M37, in Orion's club is the "37" Cluster.
Can't see it, check out cropped shot.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

And you thought the ET Open Cluster was freaky.

Toward the big dog, Canis Major, we find a few more baubles.
M41, is a hop from Sirius.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

A skip and a jump toward the tail, we find Paulie's new fave, ngc2362.

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

cropped


Finally, back toward the center of the Winter Circle, we have the grand Orion's Sword.
Space junk flyby too.

180sec @ iso1600, 750mm.

Head out with a pair of binoculars or grab-n-go scope, enjoy these wintry sparkles.

Next up, Spring galaxies!!

Joe spotted this with his 15x70mm binoculars two years ago? at Indy Beach. M81/82. Gotta like the cigar!

30sec @ iso1600, 750mm

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Oh, so very cool!

You have nicely captured the elusive nebulousness of the Subaru. Great article in a recent Astronomy article on how smaller scopes were able to tease this out optically, but larger scopes could not.

Excellent pics and I have never heard about the "37"...!

I learn something new from you Bill - all the time...

[Paulie pchris00]

I think the last open cluster that really wowed me was M11, the Wild Duck Cluster. When I stumbled across NGC 2362 Sunday night, I was impressed. At 100x, it fit nicely in the eyepiece in a roughly triangular pattern, with 4.4 magnitude Tau Canis Major right in the center of the cluster. It's located about 3 degrees east-northeast of Delta Canis Major. I recommend giving it a look.

The fuzzy to the right of M36 might be NGC 1931, which Cartes du Ciel describes only as a cluster and nebula, so presumably a small, distant open cluster.

[-=CROMAN=-]

Great pics as usual.

[erikruud]

Feb 21, 2012 17:15:10 GMT -6 Paulie pchris00 said:

I think the last open cluster that really wowed me was M11, the Wild Duck Cluster. When I stumbled across NGC 2362 Sunday night, I was impressed. At 100x, it fit nicely in the eyepiece in a roughly triangular pattern, with 4.4 magnitude Tau Canis Major right in the center of the cluster. It's located about 3 degrees east-northeast of Delta Canis Major. I recommend giving it a look.

The fuzzy to the right of M36 might be NGC 1931, which Cartes du Ciel describes only as a cluster and nebula, so presumably a small, distant open cluster.

Paulie beat me to it, I checked in Stellarium and came up with NGC 1931 as well. It's listed in Stellarium as a "Cluster associated with nebulosity".

Very nice pictures.

[patrickm]

Wow, Bill. Awesome. Always awesome. How long did you take on alignment to get such crisp 2min shots. And also no grain at 1600?

They look great! Adding that cluster to my list.
p

[patrickm]

From SkySafari

NGC 2362 - Tau Canis Majoris Cluster
NGC 2362 is an open cluster in Canis Major, surrounding 4th magnitude star Tau Canis Majoris.

NGC 2362 was one of the discoveries of Giovanni Battista Hodierna, which he published in 1654. As these observations were forgotten until their rediscovery in the early 1980s, this cluster escaped its rediscovery until March 4, 1783, when it was found by William Herschel as his second discovery. He cataloged it as H VII.17, based on his measurements of March 6, 1785.

NGC 2362 is a bright and beautiful group containing about 60 stars in an area only 8' across. It is rich and compact, and its brightest stars are very young O- and B-type giants. NGC 2362's total integrated magnitude is 4.1, but this is heavily weighted by the brightest member of the group, Ï„ CMa.

This star, a spectroscopic binary with very massive and luminous type O8 components, is believed to be a true cluster member. As Ï„ CMa is the brighter component of a spectroscopic binary, its mass has been quite well determined at 40 to 50 solar masses. If Ï„ CMa is actually a member of this cluster, as it appears, it would be one of the most luminous supergiants known, with an absolute magnitude of -7 (about 50,000 solar luminosities).

The cluster lies some 5,000 light years away; its actual diameter is about 8 light years. If we could view our own Sun from this distance, its visual magnitude would be only 15.5.

One of the youngest known star clusters, NGC 2362 may be less than 5 million years old. Dynamical studies of NGC 2362 suggest that it will survive longer before breaking up than will the Pleiades, but not as long as the Hyades.