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MINORMONOCEROSORIONFertile
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WHEN TO
USE THE MAP
Late Dec 11 p.m.
Early Jan 10 p.m.
Late Jan 9 p.m.
Early Feb 8 p.m.
Late Feb 7 p.m.
These are standard times.
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Moon
Feb 1
Moon
Jan 29
Venus
Binocular Highlight by Mathew Wedel
I
’m sure I’m not the only stargazer who is frequently
arrested by the sight of the constellation Orion
striding across the night sky. In fact, the celestial
Hunter ensnared my attention so successfully that
it took me years to discover the riches of the nearby
constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. Monoceros
has few bright stars, but since it lies squarely in the
winter Milky Way it contains an almost unbelievable
density of star clusters and nebulae.
On one of my rst “unicorn hunts,” I stumbled
across something remarkable. Right on the celestial
equator and about halfway between Beta (β) and
Epsilon (ε) Monocerotis (the latter is also known as
8 Mon) , I found a eld so rich that I assumed it must
have a name. The group is anchored by a double arc
of bright stars that curves to the west like a pair of
open parentheses. Many dimmer lights pad out the
eld, lling almost 4 ° of sky with more stars than you
can shake a stick at.
I didn’t nd a name for this wonderfully rich eld
in any of the atlases I had at the time, so I called it the
Fertile Crescent. Years later, I learned that I hadn’t
been the rst to catch this particular unicorn. Brazilian
astronomer Bruno Alessi got there rst, and at least
the central portion of my Fertile Crescent is Alessi 48
in his catalogue of asterisms and possible star clus-
ters. I strongly suspect that Al-48 will turn out to be an
asterism rather than a cluster, since the bright stars
seem to be scattered at many different distances.
Whatever it turns out to be and whatever we call it, it’s
worth tracking down. And if you end up off the beaten
path in the hinterlands of Monoceros, I recommend
that you stop and have a look around.
¢MATT WEDELlikes bright, easy targets on cold
winter evenings, so that’s what he’s serving.
Cornucopia in
Monoceros
skyandtelescope.com• FEBRUARY 2020 43