Sky and Telescope - March 2018 - 54

MARCH 2018 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders
ders by Sue French

The Crab and the Water Monster
Hydra and Cancer, once fearsome adversaries of Hercules,
now ornament our early spring skies.

C

come my way. Let's begin in Cancer,
which is shown as an upside-down Y
on the all-sky chart at the center of
this magazine. The star at the Y's fork
is called Asellus Australis, the Southern Donkey, while the star above it is
Asellus Borealis, the Northern Donkey.
In a dark sky, you'll see a hazy patch
halfway between and a shade west of
these stars. This is the large and beautiful star cluster Messier 44. It's sometimes called Praesepe, the "manger"
where the Donkeys feed. Figuratively,
this Latin word also means a bee's hive,
and M44 is more commonly known as
the Beehive Cluster.
Doug
o and Janet Adams observed the
Beehive
under dark skies in Australia.
Beeh

ancer, the Crab, and Hydra, the
Water Monster, are mythologically tied. They battled the great hero
Hercules during the second task of his
12 legendary labors, but the tremendous
crab and multi-headed beast were slain
by the mighty demigod. Their constellations are joined in the sky as well,
with Hydra's head resting close beneath
Cancer's legs. Now well placed for
observing in the evening sky, these foes
of Hercules will be the site of our deepsky explorations.
I very much enjoy the observations
other amateur astronomers send me,
and I'd like to showcase some that have
N

Doug writes, "I was more impressed
with the naked-eye view! Something I
don't get from Melbourne is just what
an eerie nebulous patch it is. Our view
to the north was partially blocked by
surrounding gum trees, and I didn't
know what it was until I worked out
what patch of the sky we were looking
at." He also described the view through
their 101-mm scope: "The telescope
view exploded into a large patch of
bright stars. It was framed well at 23×
in the refractor." Even my 12×36 binoculars reveal a swarm of about 20 bright
bees, nine of them ﬂying in a V formation and four tinted yellow-orange.
Fainter members double the count and
spread across 70′.

M44

W

p Use an O III filter to search for the extremely
faint, diffuse planetary nebula Abell 31; an Hbeta filter might also help. Even with filters, this
is a challenge object that will require dark skies
and (realistically) at least 8 inches of aperture.
u In dark skies, the open star cluster M44 is
visible to the naked eye. This image was created with a total of 1 hour exposure time with
an f/4.9 astrograph.

54

M A RCH 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

SK E TCH: JA A K KO SA LOR A N TA; IM AG E: C H A D Q UA N DT

Abell 31

Sky and Telescope - March 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - March 2018

Contents
Sky and Telescope - March 2018 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - March 2018 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - March 2018 - 1
Sky and Telescope - March 2018 - Contents
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