Globular Clusters
Apart from the Messiers plus Omega Centauri, globular clusters (gcs) have not previously drawn a beetled brow from this particular noggin. Last night though, before mighty Juipter came out from behind the hackberry and the clouds swept up from the south, a beetled Neanderthal brow overhung these eyeballs peeled for gcs. Praise the Goddess.
That’s correct. The WG allowed a few hours of decent seeing before She shut me down at 1:30AM. The fun started with M5. Then M9. But what about those two that are hard upon M9; NGC 6356 and NGC 6342. May I espy those also?, Crumby wondered.
Turns out those twain gcs are fairly easy compared to craters on Pluto. No, no, no. They are way easier than craters on Pluto. Craters on Pluto are impossible. But espying those twain got Crumby cogitating. What if, most of the gcs in these parts are also fairly easy to espy? Maybe they are all easy as pie. What if I espied them all? Would I make history? Course not.
Anon, worn out from cogitation, Crumby set about espying more NGC gcs in those general parts that were near conspicuous stars and therefore easy star hops. OK. Crumby found four more in Sagittarius that were easy. These are NGC 6638 near Kaus Borealis, NGC 6652 near Kaus Australis, M69 and M70, and the twain funsters, NGC 6528 and NGC 6522 near Alnasi. The last are neat because they are very close, each to the other, with only a couple of tiny stars in between.
Why are the Lagoon and Omega nebulas very nebulous when compared to the Trifid and Eagle nebulas, which, absent filters, are miserably nebulous? The fact is, even with filters they are comparatively pitiful. Why is that?
Anyway, Crumby is fixing to head out to darker skies again pretty soon. All this practice shall insure that Crumby is fairly efficient and does not waste darker sky time. Praise the Goddess with great praise.
That’s correct. The WG allowed a few hours of decent seeing before She shut me down at 1:30AM. The fun started with M5. Then M9. But what about those two that are hard upon M9; NGC 6356 and NGC 6342. May I espy those also?, Crumby wondered.
Turns out those twain gcs are fairly easy compared to craters on Pluto. No, no, no. They are way easier than craters on Pluto. Craters on Pluto are impossible. But espying those twain got Crumby cogitating. What if, most of the gcs in these parts are also fairly easy to espy? Maybe they are all easy as pie. What if I espied them all? Would I make history? Course not.
Anon, worn out from cogitation, Crumby set about espying more NGC gcs in those general parts that were near conspicuous stars and therefore easy star hops. OK. Crumby found four more in Sagittarius that were easy. These are NGC 6638 near Kaus Borealis, NGC 6652 near Kaus Australis, M69 and M70, and the twain funsters, NGC 6528 and NGC 6522 near Alnasi. The last are neat because they are very close, each to the other, with only a couple of tiny stars in between.
Why are the Lagoon and Omega nebulas very nebulous when compared to the Trifid and Eagle nebulas, which, absent filters, are miserably nebulous? The fact is, even with filters they are comparatively pitiful. Why is that?
Anyway, Crumby is fixing to head out to darker skies again pretty soon. All this practice shall insure that Crumby is fairly efficient and does not waste darker sky time. Praise the Goddess with great praise.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, June 21, 2009
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home