Utah Skies
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Fornax

Constellation Report

Our Constellation report is an easy way for people to become familiar with the nighttime sky. We’ll discuss myths associated with the various constellations as well as describing the numerous deep sky objects residing in the area. No equipment is required to view the constellations, though a star chart can be quite helpful. This ease of observing makes constellations a natural place to begin your journey to the stars. 

In this report, we move on to the constellation Fornax. Fornax the Furnace is a relatively young constellation, being created from some "unused" stars on the fringe of Eridanus.

 

 

The Deep Sky Wonders of Fornax

Deep Sky Report

First up... let's target the alpha star... At mag3.8, this won't knock your socks off or anything, but... in a telescope, it is a nice double star. The secondary star at mag6.5 is 4.9" away.  This should be pretty easy to separate with even the most modest amateur telescopes.


Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC253
Ok, let's go deep.. with a beautiful, Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1097(mag9.2). This is a very cool galaxy... with lots of detail. You'll definitely want to throw aperture & dark skies at this, but... you'll certainly be rewarded if you do.


Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1350Next up is another beautiful Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1350(mag10.5). 

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1365 as imaged by the VLTContinuing, we come to yet another Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC1365(mag9.5). This gorgeous shot was taken by the VLT (Very Large Telescope). And Very Large it is! The VLT is made up of 4 telescopes each with 8 METER mirrors and 3 more 1 meter telescopes. Very Large indeed!

This shot contains some gorgeous detail. Look at the twisted dust lanes emerging from the bright galaxy core. Just to put this in perspective... this galaxy is 19.4 Mpc from us. Mpc stands for mega parsec. 1 parsec is 3.26 light years. 1 mega parsec is therefore 3.26 million light years. Continuing the math, this object is just over 63 million light years away.

Burnham noted that NGC1365 is "probably the finest object of it's type in the southern sky". Northern observers will probably be less impressed. Remember though... it's -36° declination puts in less than 15° above the southern horizon when viewed from mid-northern latitudes. Atmospheric opacity and turbulence will work significantly against you.


Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1398 as imaged by Daniel VerschatseContinuing, we come to another beautiful Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC1398(mag9.7). 

In the eyepiece of a typical amateur telescope, this galaxy will look more like an elliptical galaxy than a spiral. It is only in larger telescopes and photographs that the arms actually come into view.

This beautiful shot was taken by Daniel Verschatse using a 14.5 inch Ritchey-Chretien telescope on an Astro-Physics 1200GTO mount at his "Astrofarm" in Antilhue, Chile.


Elliptical Galaxy NGC1399 and The Fornax Galaxy ClusterContinuing, we come to our final stop in Fornax... this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object ...The Fornax Galaxy Cluster. NGC1399 (mag9.9) is the largest and brightest galaxy in the cluster.
Here's another sweet shot of The Fornax Galaxy Cluster. This one includes the beautiful Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC1365 pictured above. I think it's really helpful to get a feel for just how tight some of these clusters are.

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