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The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Sagitta.
Sagitta is
located just southeast of the constellations Cygnus and Vulpecula. Sagitta very definitely looks like an arrow pointing towards the
northeast.
To begin with, I'd like to tell you that this region is going to challenge your observing skills. Except for our first object, the deep sky objects in this constellation are either very faint, very small, or both. You're definitely going to need dark skies, a decent sized telescope, and a bit of patients to find these. Ok,
let's get things started. One very interesting star to check out is U Sagittae.
It is what astronomers refer to as an eclipsing variable star. This is a star
system in which the bright primary star is completely eclipsed by it's larger
but fainter companion. The pair, which consists of mag6 and mag9 components,
eclipse each other every 3 days or so. They remain at this dramatically dimmed
level for about 40 minutes and then they begin to brighten again. The pair is
easily observed in binoculars or a small telescope.
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