Sky and Telescope - June 2017 - 54

JUNE 2017 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders by Sue French

Doodles in the Sky
O

ur brains are wired to seek patterns. We see castles in the clouds,
butterﬂies in inkblots, and faces or even
rabbits on the Moon. Amateur astronomers experience this pareidolia when
gazing at the vast dot-to-dot tableau of
the night sky. We imaginatively sketch
ﬁgures among the stars, spawning a
wealth of cosmic doodles that we call
asterisms.
Let's take a look at some of the asterisms that populate the sky at this time of
the year, sticking to those that are noteworthy for the images they've evoked.
From April through June, the starﬁgure known as Jaws is best caught
early in the night. You'll ﬁnd it in the
constellation Virgo, near the border it
shares with Corvus. Jaws is one of my
favorite asterisms. It's just beautiful

Jaws

M104

54

J U N E 2 0 1 7 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

in the ﬁeld of view with the Sombrero
Galaxy (M104) through my 130-mm
refractor at 48×. My pencil sketch
shows the two as seen through the
scope and also outlines the asterism.
Jaws represents a skeletal shark whose
most prominent feature is a toothy
mouth of four stars, the brightest one
gold. Its six-star spine curves northeast
and is all you can see of the shark's
body, while a solitary star to the west
marks the tip of its dorsal ﬁn. Mouth to
tail, our ﬁnny friend spans 27′. Wellknown author Phil Harrington gave
Jaws its popular name in his book The
Deep Sky: An Introduction.
French amateur Laurent Ferrero
keeps an internet list of interesting
star groups that he's noticed during
more than 20 years of deep-sky observ-

ing (https://is.gd/laurentferrero). His
catalog currently consists of 53 objects,
some of which proved to be true open
clusters. Among his asterisms, the
Eiffel Tower (Ferrero 6) is thus named
because its tapered form is reminiscent
of this famous cultural icon. In the
130-mm scope at 37×, it's composed
of 16 stars, magnitude 8.2 and fainter,
the brightest one deep yellow. The tower
is 28′ tall, with its tip pointing southsouthwest. The Eiffel Tower is easy to
locate by picturing the right triangle
that it makes with Zeta (ζ) and Epsilon
(ε) Ursae Majoris in the Big Dipper's
handle. Our asterism's discoverer is also
the author of a French-language, ﬁvevolume observing guide called Splendeurs
du Ciel Profond.
Just 40′ south-southwest of Arcturus
in Boötes, we ﬁnd Napoleon's Hat
(Picot 1). Fulbert Picot, the French amateur astronomer for whom the group is
named, also bestowed its apt nickname.
Through the 130-mm refractor at 23×,
the emperor's chapeau consists of seven
stars ranging from magnitude 9.4 to
10.7, distributed along a bell curve.
The brim of the hat is 20′ long and
runs northeast to southwest. My 18×50
image-stabilized binoculars capture six
of the seven stars, missing only the one
at the top of the hat. Ken Hewitt-White,
a contributing editor for Sky & Telescope,
ﬁttingly thinks this asterism "suggests
a caterpillar humped-up in mid crawl."
Ken is probably referring to the caterpillars commonly called inchworms, since
most other caterpillars don't have the
inchworm's looping gait.
Now commonly called the Zigzag,
our next asterism was introduced by
Phil Harrington in Touring the Universe

DAVID R ATLEDG E, SK E TCH: SUE FRENCH

From sharks to dogs, hats to rings, these night-sky patterns will have you seeking more.
https://is.gd/laurentferrero
Sky and Telescope - June 2017

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