Adrian Dening's Stars Over Somerset

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 17:00

Monday 30th May to Sunday 5th June 2022

After their conjunction last week, there are still some great opportunities to see Mars and Jupiter close together, but you will need to be an early riser. Just before daybreak, say around 3.30am, the pair of planets will be located towards the east, fairly close to the horizon.

At the same time, Saturn will be slightly higher up, towards the south east.

If you are up at that time of day and fancy a little challenge with your telescope or binoculars, you could have a go at spotting one of Charles Messier's globular star clusters, M14.

First find the large constellation of Ophiuchus slightly west of due south. It resembles a large box with a pointed lid and the bright star, Rasalhague, is at the top. Then locate the two stars Cebalrai and Sabik running down the left hand side of the constellation. M14 is situated approximately one third of the way down from Cebalrai and slightly to the left.

The cluster is about 30,000 light years away, so if you do go outside to observe it, you will be seeing the cluster how it was 30,000 years ago because the light has taken that long to reach us! The cluster contains several hundred thousand stars - with binoculars or a small telescope, it will resemble a fuzzy blob. You would need a large telescope to be able to start resolving individual stars within it.

The name Ophiuchus comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "serpent bearer" and he is holding a snake, represented by the adjacent constellation of Serpens.

Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2022