Winter sights
So much to see and longer nights to spend discovering these stunning constellations…
Auriga, the Charioteer
This enormous constellation is on the rise in the east
The sprawling pentagon stick-figure of Auriga is home to both open star clusters and diffuse nebulae. All its nebulae are faint and mostly invisible to urban astronomers, but it is blessed with three beautiful Messier clusters.
The great open cluster M37 (mag. +5.6, 15’ across) is one of the few deepsky objects that looks wonderful in any telescope under almost any conditions. It’s not too large for medium aperture, medium-focal-length telescopes (the larger the focal length of a telescope, the
Spectacular, rich open cluster M37 is a delight through instruments of any size smaller its field of view), but also not so small as to fade into the background in smaller, shorter-focal-length instruments. M37 lies just outside Auriga’s stick figure to the east of a line drawn between bright Mahasim (Theta (θ) Aurigae) and Elnath (Beta (β) Tauri; this ‘fifth’ star in Auriga’s pentagon actually belongs to Taurus).
M36 (mag. +6, 10’ across) is also an impressive open cluster, 3°41’ northwest of M37. Bright and compact, it packs a lot of bright stars into a small area. In a 10-inch reflector, it is slightly oval in shape and festooned with bright suns.
A further 2°18’ northwest is the third of the Auriga Trio of open clusters, M38 (mag. +6.4, 15’ across). M38 is rich with brilliant stars, arranged in lines and streamers extending from the centre, hence its name, the Starfish Cluster. In a low-power eyepiece, M38 looks like a cosmic starfish in a dark sea of night.
NGC 1907 (mag. +8.2, 5’ across) is a dim open cluster, located 32’ southwest of M38. With 8 inches of aperture, you’ll see it even in fairly heavy light pollution – although it will look like a nebulous spot rather than a star cluster.