BINOCULAR TOUR

The easy to spot Hyades and tricky M78 are among January’s wide-field targets

1. The Hyades

The Hyades cluster is next to Aldebaran (Alpha (α) Tauri), the ruddy ‘Eye of the Bull’, which is a foreground star. This huge cluster is only 153 lightyears away, making it the nearest open cluster to us, and you should easily see 30 or more stars. The Hyades were the daughters of Atlas, whose tears of grief for their slain brother, Hyas, are the April rain showers that are associated with their heliacal setting.  SEEN IT

2. The Meissa Cluster

Orion’s head looks distinctly fuzzy to the naked eye and, when you look at it through binoculars, you immediately see why: it is a small cluster of stars dominated by the brilliant white Meissa (Lambda (λ) Orionis), also called Heka, ‘the white spot’. The other two bright stars in the field of view are the sapphire blue Phi1 (φ1) Orionis, and deep yellow Phi2 (φ2) Orionis, which is probably not part of the cluster.  SEEN IT 3. The Queen of Clusters, M35

Find Tejat (Mu (μ) Geminorum), put it at the southeast edge of your field of view and look for a large misty patch near the opposite side. Under suburban skies you should be able to resolve at least 10 stars with 10x50 binoculars in this ‘Queen of Clusters’. If you have dark skies, use averted vision to try to glimpse a smaller (5 arcminute diameter) cluster, NGC 2158, 0.5˚ to the southwest.  SEEN IT

4. The Christmas Tree Cluster

About 6.5˚ south of Alhena (Gamma (γ) Geminorum) you will find, surrounding the slightly variable (mag. +4.6 to +4.7) blue star S Monocerotis, the seasonally appropriate Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264. S Monocerotis is the trunk of the narrow wedge of stars that forms the inverted tree. Despite being in the Milky Way, there are few faint stars in the vicinity here, due to a large amount of interstellar dust in the region.  SEEN IT

5. NGC 2244

Next, head 5.5˚ south-southwest from NGC 2264 to a narrow rectangular group of stars, about 25 arcminutes long, that looks more like a denser accumulation in the Milky Way than an actual cluster – there is no tell-tale background glow from fainter stars. With good skies, you may detect the glow of the Rosette Nebula, from which these stars formed.  SEEN IT

6. M78

You will need mounted binoculars, a transparent sky and averted vision for M78; Alnitak (Zeta (z) Orionis) is just outside the south-southwest of the field of view and a small misty glow should appear near the centre. You will notice that it’s brighter at the top than at the bottom, giving the appearance of a comet.  SEEN IT

Tick the box when you’ve seen each one