Compared to the previous month, the view of the evening star tent has not changed significantly. Because the vault of the sky has only turned 30° when you look at the starry sky at the same time as in the previous month. Since a star day is 23h56m long, all stars culminate four minutes earlier each day than the day before. After a month (i.e. after 30 days) all stars pass the meridian two hours earlier.
Orion has already crossed the celestial meridian at 22h CET. Its reddish shoulder star Betelgeuse and its bluish foot star Rigel can be recognized well even in the brightened city sky, just as the three stand in a line rotated by 30° if you look at the starry sky at the same time as in the previous month. Since a star day is 23h56m long, all stars culminate four minutes earlier each day than the day before. After a month (i.e. after 30 days) all stars pass the meridian two hours earlier.
Orion has already crossed the celestial meridian at 22h CET. Its reddish shoulder star Betelgeuse and its bluish star star Rigel can be recognized even in the brightened city sky, as well as the three belt stars standing in a line. However, the Great Orion Nebula (M 42) just south of the three belt stars can only be seen with good eyesight under good visibility conditions. This star formation nest is an attractive object for binocular observers. The sky hunter Orion is followed by the Great Dog, whose intense bluish radiant star Sirius has just passed the meridian. The coming spring is heralding the eastern sky: the lion takes its place here, it is the guiding constellation of the spring sky. Its main star Regulus immediately stands out as the only star of the first size in this area. The twins are high above our heads. Cancer is found between the lions and the twins. The name. almost everyone knows him because he belongs to the zodiac, whose pictures are regularly mentioned in horoscopes. But to spot the crab in the starry sky is not easy, since it is composed only of faint stars.
The naked star cluster Praesepe (lat., cradle) can already be seen in cancer with the naked eye, but only as a weak spot of light under good visibility conditions. In star charts the Praesepe is often entered with the catalog designation M44. A swarm of individual stars appears in the telescope.
The winter hexagon with Kapella in the cart, Aldebaran in the bull, Rigel in the Orion, Sirius in the big dog, Procyon in the little dog and Pollux in the twins have shifted significantly to the west. Of the autumn pictures, only Andromeda and Perseus are worth mentioning.
In the northeast, the Big Dipper slowly pushes higher, while the Cassiopeia, descends to the horizon but does not reach it as a circumpolar image. The seven car stars are not an independent constellation, but belong to the Great Bear (lat. Ursa Maior).
The water snake (Latin: Hydra) meanders along the southeastern horizon. Your head is just south of the constellation Cancer. It is made up of faint stars and is therefore not easy to spot. The water snake is female. There is a second constellation, the water snake, the hydrus or the male water snake. However, the hydrus is so far south that it always remains below the horizon in Central Europe and therefore unobservable.
Objects For Binoculars & Telescopes
To the traditional celestial objects that create a grandiose impression in binoculars and also in visitors to an observatory always bg. spiritually, the two open stem heaps belong to Hyades and Pleiades in Taurus. The Pleiades (M45) appear more crowded. With around 400 light years, they are also three times further away than the Hyads with a distance of 140 light years. In the middle of the hyads is the orange Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri). However, it does not belong to this star cluster, but is one of the most prominent with 66 light years. Binoculars already separate the 91.2 Tauri binary in the Hyades. In the telescope, the central part of the pleiades is broken down into four separate light points.
M44, the crib in the constellation Cancer, is also one of the jewels in the winter sky. With bare eyes as a matt, “but clearly visible light spot, M44 turns out in binoculars as a magnificent open star cluster. The field of vision is teeming with stars. The Americans call this star cluster Beehive, the beehive, because they have the impression that they see stars like buzzing bees. The Latin name for crib is Praesepe. The approximately 300 stars of the cluster are 580 light years away from us. In binoculars you can only see the 50 brightest suns from M 44. The brightest single star in the cluster is Cancri with 6m3, a white star (spectral type A2).
M44, the crib in the constellation Cancer, is also one of the jewels in the winter sky. With bare eyes as a matt, “but clearly visible light spot, M44 turns out in the binoculars as a splendid open star cluster. The field of vision is teeming with stars. The Americans call this star cluster Beehive, the beehive, because they have the impression that they see stars like buzzing bees. The Latin name for crib is Praesepe. The approximately 300 stars of the cluster are 580 light years away from us. In binoculars you can only see the 50 brightest suns from M 44. The brightest single star in the cluster is Cancri with 6m3, a white star (spectral type A2).
In addition to the cradle in Cancer, the M67 star cluster in Cancer is an impressive object. M 67 lies almost 2° west of Acubens (Alpha Cancri). In a telescope with an opening of 20 cm or more, you can see more than 200 individual stars that are relatively close together. In binoculars you therefore have the impression of a little mist of about 20 ’. This bunch can be easily resolved in a telescope. Its distance was determined from the color-brightness diagram (FHD) to be around 2500 light years. New distance measurements tend to make a distance of almost 3000 light years seem more appropriate. With an age of around four billion years, M67 is one of the oldest open star clusters.
Another open star cluster is recommended: M35 in the constellation Gemini. It lies about 2 °5 northwest of Propus (Geminorum) and is already visible through binoculars. However, through a telescope, you can discern roughly 300 member-stars. The distance of this star community from us is approx. 2800 light years.
An interesting triplet in cancer is Tegmeni, 84 light years away. The main component is a 5m0 bright, yellow star (GO) with a companion of 6m0, which also shines yellowish. The separation of both stars is 6″, which separates each three-inch model. The main component itself is a narrow double star of 1m1 distance with 5% and 6m0 brightness of the individual components.
For double star hunters, Kastor in the twins is also called (a Geminorum). Two white suns (A2) with 1m9 and 2m9 brightness are currently 5m3 separated. They circle each other in 470 years. Kastor is 52 light years away and, strictly speaking, a sixfold star.
M51 is a galaxy, a prime example of a spiral nebula that you can see almost vertically. M51 is in the hunting dogs and is considered one of the most beautiful spiral nebulae that are often shown on guided tours. Lord Rosse was the first to recognize the spiral shape of M 51. Because of its appearance, this galaxy is also called “whirlpool galaxy” (Eng. Whirl; pool Galaxy). In order to clearly recognize the spiral shape, one should use a telescope with at least 25cm free opening (10-inch). At the end of a spiral arm there is a brightening that comes from the companion galaxy NGC5195. The more than 300 billion stars of M51 are 27 million light years away from us. Experienced observers may want to look for the NGC 2357 galaxy in the twins. They can be found a little north-northwest of Delta Geminorum. You can see them from the edge as a needle or spindle-shaped structure with 2′ length and a brightness of 13%. To recognize NGC 2357, you should use a telescope with at least 25 cm aperture and a magnification of 200 to 300 times.
Coordinates: a = 07h17m41S / 5 == + 23 ° 21’24 “(12000.0)
In 2010, a supernova outbreak with 15″3 took place in NGC 2357. Another was observed in this galaxy in 2015 (maximum brightness: 14%)
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