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Fornax
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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.
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Deep
Sky Report
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| 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. |
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 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.
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 Next up is another
beautiful Barred
Spiral Galaxy NGC1350(mag10.5).
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 Continuing,
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.
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 Continuing,
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.
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 Continuing,
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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Events |
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Did you ever consider... |
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"It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." - Richard Feynman |
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