Monday 29th August to Sunday 4th September 2022
If you go outside a little after dark, say from 10pm, the Moon will have already dropped below the horizon to the west and so will be producing zero light pollution - a favourite time for astronomers who want to go hunting deep sky objects - those faint fuzzy blobs.
I like to classify deep sky objects into three different types - clusters of stars (either globular or open clusters), nebulas (or collections of gasses) and finally galaxies. The clusters and nebulas are relatively close to us, within our own Milky Way galaxy, where the neighbouring galaxies are millions of light years away, far outside the Milky Way. Of course if you could get up close to one of those galaxies, you would see that it contains billions of stars along with clusters and nebulas of its own.
If you look towards the east south east, find the constellation of Pegasus. To the left of Pegasus is the next closest galaxy to us, the spiral shaped Andromeda Galaxy M31. It is quite an easy target to find with your telescope despite being a whopping two and a half million light years away from us! When you look at it, you are seeing the galaxy how it was 2.5 million years ago as the light has taken that long to reach us! From a very dark location it is even possible to make it out with the naked eye.
Alternatively, to the right of Pegasus is a 12 billion year old globular star cluster, catalogued by Charles Messier while he was comet-hunting and given the designator M15. A small telescope will reveal a definite glow or fuzzy blob; a larger telescope will show a bright core with a halo of surrounding stars. It is only 35,000 light years away from us- in other words, well within our Milky Way.
I have provided star charts to help you locate M31 and M15.
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2022
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