Monday 28th June to Sunday 4th July 2021
Adrian Dening's Stars Over Somerset
Monday 28th June to Sunday 4th July 2021
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about an area of the sky known as the Summer Triangle; an "asterism" or pattern of stars with Altair, Deneb and Vega at the three corners.
If you are in a dark location, with no light pollution from the Moon, you will notice what looks like thin white cloud running through the triangle - it's not cloud, but a great swath of faint stars, hundreds of thousands of them, that are our distant neighbours within the Milky Way galaxy.
Close to an imaginary line running between Deneb and Altair, you can find a small bright open cluster of stars known as Messier 29 and a globular cluster of stars called Messier 71.
Both of these have a magnitude of around +6 so you will need a dark sky together with a small telescope or binoculars to spot them.
Also along this line are the Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27) and the North America Nebula. The North America Nebula doesn't have a Messier catalogue number because Charles Messier never discovered it! The Nebula was actually first observed by William Herschel back in 1786 and it is listed in other catalogues, produced at different times. The North America Nebula is so named because its shape resembles the continent. You can guess what the Dumbbell Nebula looks like!
You will need a telescope to be able to see the nebulas.
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2021
Adrian Dening's Stars Over Somerset
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