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Constellation
Report |
 This weekend we move on to the constellation
Aquila The Eagle.
Aquila was the mighty Jupiter's bird... performing many brave and difficult tasks. This is one constellation which actually (kind of) looks like the object its supposed to be.
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Deep
Sky Report
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The focus of our efforts here will be the deep sky objects of
Aquila. To find Aquila, face due south shortly after dark. Aquila is to the north/northeast of Sagittarius which we visited last weekend. Aquila contains a few nice objects in the midst of the summer Milky Way.
Let's star things off by observing Aquila's brightest star, Alpha Aquilae or Altair(mag0.77). Altair is the 12th brightest star in the sky and is located 16 light years, making it one of our nearer neighbors. Altair is a fairly typical star size-wise being about 1.5 times the size of our sun and 9 times brighter. Altair rotates quite rapidly though. It completes one rotation in only 6.5 hours. By contrast, our Sun takes 25.4 days to complete the same rotation.
Next up is Aquila's second brightest star, Beta Aquilae or Alschain(mag3.71). This is a very difficult double to separate. Alschain's companion is a whopping 12.8" away, however the red dwarf companion is rather faint -- about mag 12, making it about 1/1600 as bright as as Alschain. You'll definitely need top notch optics and clear steady skies for this one. Go ahead! Give it a shot!
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Let's move out a bit and checkout Open Star Cluster, NGC6709(mag6.75). This cluster does not have a huge number of member stars. Add this to the fact that it's superimposed against an incredibly dense background of stars and you could just about miss it. But, don't worry. In a small telescope or binoculars, this is a nice object to look at. You should notice the fact that several of the brighter member stars are double stars.
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Next up is Spiral Galaxy, NGC6814(mag11.25). This object has a fairly low surface brightness, and so will be a bit tougher to observe that mag 11 would suggest. (Maybe mag11 already sounds tough :) Anyway... you'll be able to find it in most telescopes, but... you'll need dark skies and aperture to really appreciate this.
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Let's quickly checkout Triple Star, NGC6859.This is an nice multiple star system. I'm not sure why they added it to the NGC list, but... multiple star fans will enjoy it.
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Let's wrap things up with this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object, Planetary Nebula, NGC6781(mag11.8).
This interesting little nebula is located about 2600 light years from us. Located as it is near some reasonably bright stars, you shouldn't have an extremely difficult time locating this object. As usual, dark skies and aperture will help (where have I heard this before :) Also... you might want to try swapping out some nebula filters and see which gives you the best results.
This beautiful shot was taken by Al Kelly. Have you checked out his site lately? Al is continually updating it with amazing images.
Good Luck!
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