Adrian Dening's Stars Over Somerset

Wednesday, 22 May 2024 17:00

Monday 27th May to Sunday 2nd June 2024

If you are up early on the morning of Friday 31st May, say around 4am before dawn and look towards the south east, you will be greeted by a 45%-lit waning crescent Moon with planet Saturn a little to the left of it.

During the summer months, astronomers enjoy looking at an area of the night sky known as the "Summer Triangle" which is formed between the stars Deneb in the constellation of Cygnus, Vega in Lyra and Altair in Aquila. Currently, if you are outside around 11pm, the Summer Triangle will have risen above the horizon to the east.

Why do astronomers get so excited about it? Well firstly, you will notice a patch of faint cloud running across the triangle - it's not really cloud, rather the centre of our Milky way galaxy and you are seeing the light from millions of stars in the distance.

The Summer Triangle is the location of many deep sky targets for your telescope, for example the Dumbbell Nebula M27 and Ring Nebula M57, so named because of their obvious shapes. There are also objects that do not appear in the Charles Messier Catalogue; instead they are listed in the New General Catalogue. You could try to spot NGC7000 which is known as the North America Nebula because it looks like the outline of the USA with the Pelican Nebula beside it. See if you can make out the shape of the pelican.

Finally, near the middle of the triangle is the black hole Cygnus X1, but you won't see that because no light can escape from it. You would need an X-Ray telescope to detect it!