Australian Sky & Telescope — January 01, 2018

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SCENE: ESO/J.PÉREZ;
S&T
DIAGRAM: GREGG DINDERMAN
Grab your binoculars and head
outdoors for this summer sky tour.
there a more enchanting time of year than this for
stargazing? The evenings are warm and the summer
Milky Way arches high overhead, spangled with bright
stars, clusters, asterisms and associations beyond count.
At other times of year, different spectacles draw our
attention — galaxies in autumn, and the clusters and star
clouds of the galactic centre in winter. But when we survey
the summer Milky Way, we’re looking away from the centre
of our galaxy. We see the nearby spiral arms without the
distractions of any farther backdrop, and the fine-scale fabric
of the galaxy is revealed.
In this tour of the nearby Milky Way, we’ll explore stars,
clusters and nebulae ranged along the axis of the galaxy
from Canis Major, the Big Dog, through Monoceros, the
Unicorn, to Orion, the Hunter, and the Twins of Gemini. I
made these observations with 15×70 binoculars with a 4.4°
field of view. Most of the objects will also be visible through
smaller binoculars, and will be even more rewarding with
rich-field telescopes. Dark skies will he ost of the
clusters and double stars look good eve rban skies.
To better appreciate the differences am pen clusters,
try sketching them. You may be surprised at how much more
you’ll see.
NGC 2360 is also known as Caroline’s Cluster, named
in honour of Caroline Herschel, who discovered it on
February 26, 1783. Like many open star clusters, Caroline’s
IS
9
8
2
7
2
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4
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1
Use the star map at right to follow along with the text. The numbers in
blue circles correspond to the images on the following pages.