HMO

TCO

SLC

Constellation Report

This weekend we move on to the constellation Lyra the Harp. 

Deep Sky Report

The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Lyra. Lyra is located on the western edge of the Milky Way due east of the constellation Hercules, which we covered a couple of weeks ago. To find Lyra, simply face towards the east after dark and look overhead. Lyra resembles a parallelogram of stars.  To be certain that you've found Lyra, simply verify that you've found it's most prominent member star, Vega. 

With a magnitude of 0.0 Vega is the 5th brightest star in the sky and by far the brightest star in this region. You can't miss it. Estimates place Vega's distance at about 27 light years and it's actual luminosity about 58 times greater than that of our Sun. Vega is actually an optical double star as well. It's companion star is quite faint and can only be seen with a telescope.

While we're checking out double stars, lets visit Epsilon Lyra, the famous "Double-Double". Located about 1.5 degrees to the northeast of Vega, this multiple star system looks like a single star when viewed with the naked eye. Binoculars will reveal this star to be a pair of stars and a telescope will further split each of the stars into another beautiful pair. The wide pair (Epsilon1) is separated by about 3.5" and the narrower pair (Epsilon 2) by 2.6". All four of the stars are generally seen as white. This beautiful shot was taken by the folks over at The Jodrell Bank Observatory.  

Lyra is home to the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower which runs from about April 20-22. The Lyrids are a quiet show, and typically peak at about 8 meteors an hour.

Let's start things off with with one of the night skies showpiece objects, Planetary Nebula M57... better known as The Ring Nebula(mag8.8). The Ring, as it is affectionately known, is undoubtedly the best known example of a planetary nebula. Virtually any telescope will be able to spot the Ring, but... as you might expect... larger apertures under dark skies will give the most amazing views. I've recently managed to spy the central star.. and almost convince myself that I saw the second off-center star. Needless to say, these are quite faint and require a considerable amount of magnification. 

Checkout this awesome shot by Al Kelly. This image was created from a series taken using a 32" f4 Newtonian from Danciger, Texas

Let's wrap things up with this weeks Utah Skies Challenge  Object, Spiral Galaxy NGC6703(mag11.5). This small, round Spiral Galaxy has a fairly bright core. No sign of the spiral arms can be found even in photos. Why is this called a spiral galaxy then? Actually, Burnham's which is based on older data, lists NGC6703 as an E0/S0 galaxy. Essentially a cross between an elliptical and a spiral. Recent data suggests that this is simply an S0 - a spiral without arms.  

Good Luck!