Down the Milky Way

I had a wonderful observing night yesterday, at my dark site (I begin to find darkness addictive). I started with M35 and proceeded along the Miky Way (that was clearly visible albeit not down to the horizon) looking for open clusters - while they were placed favourably at our latitude. There are at least a dozen bright open clusters for a small telescope between M35 and M46, all very different from each other! Along the way I came over NGC2175 which is shown as an open cluster in Karkoschka but involves a large featureless diffuse neubla as well. I missed to look for the Cone Nebula in the Christmas Tree cluster. In the end was M46 with its huge amount of stars of even brightness, where I for the first time saw the planetary nebula NGC2438. It was not visible without filter, but with UHC it reminded M57 with much lower contrast. I checked the size later - and indeed, 2438 is 1'.1 and M57 1'.5 in diameter. I had a feeling that there is a huge wealth of interesting objects further down - but bumped into the horizon... Canis Major hardly ever shows its complete self here.

Before I went home I took a quick look at the Leo triplet - a foretaste of spring galaxies to come.

Dmitri

All right, Dmitri. It sounds as if you had a wonderful time. I must find a dark sky site, too.

I enjoy the open clusters in the area of the Milky Way that you described through my 90mm refractor. I live a little further south of your location, so I am able to see the entire Canis Major and further south in Puppis to M41 and M93, etc.

How long was your observing session? What kind of scope did you use? Here the weather is normally much colder than Sweden, so I am chased in by the cold after perhaps one hour.

Rick Wiseman