Sagittarius - Your Amazing!!!

[Suzy]

Hi all,

I'm loving my first winter observing (obs, not cold) and after exploring the beautiful wonders of Scorpio, for the first time last night I just started to discover how magnificent Sagittarius is.

How awesome is this constellation! I have fallen in love with the M22 Glob. Despite the clouds, through my 6 inch light tea cup, I could make out this glob beautifully, resolving it to pretty good detail, even to the point of seeing many tiny yellow stars scattered on the outer, with a tight core in the middle. When thin wisps of cloud covered this glob, it took out the central part of the glob, leaving the outer ones very apparent - it was a nice sight - the clouds in this instance helped! I like this one so much more than Omega Centauri- for me it seems to have more character. My eyes are getting better at making out detail. I can't wait for a good clear night to have a look at M22 again!

Anyway, while I was doing research on Sagittarius on line, I came across this web page that threw me for a 6! I know the Milky Way galaxy has evolved from gobbling up other galaxies; what this article is saying is that we were originally part of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy that is being currently gobbled up by the Milky Way. The article also further goes on to say that because of this there are higher energy levels noted, causing higher temperature levels through out our solar system. What a surprise - I did not know this! According to my "Astronomica" book, it is also now proven that Globular Cluster M54 is confirmed to be a rogue from the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.

Gosh, this was a lot to take in.

Here is the link, if you have some spare time to read ...
http:////viewzone2.com/milkywayx.html (http://viewzone2.com/milkywayx.html)

Suzy.

[jjjnettie]

It's the best time of year Suzie.

[adman]

Well - looks like you might get your wish again tonight.

I have been out for the last 2 nights.....just comtemplating whether to set up again tonight...:question:

Happy observing!
Adam

[jjjnettie]

LOL I'm set up, but not sure if I'll take the dust covers off tonight. It's been 3 nights in a row for me.

[adman]

Are you starting to get astro 'burn-out' ....:lol:

[jjjnettie]

:lol: Something like that. :P
I was spoiled with 2 nights of trouble free imaging.:)
Then last night I couldn't get my mount working properly. I couldn't get more than 2min of guiding. :shrug:
Just not in the mood to deal with contrary equipment tonight. :mad2:

[leon]

Enjoy girls, it is as JJJ says the best time of the year, cold crispy and frosty.

leon

[North_Of_40]

Hello everyone. I'm new to the forum. I'm in North America/Washington State. From you location in Australia, your viewing of Sagittarius exceeds what I can see of it. And, I'm looking for a celestial body near the great archer's arrow tip.

This is the information I have so far. Start from arrow tip at RA18 and search all the way down. Adjust for parallax. Search infrared or use camera with infrared filter removed and attach to telescope.

If what I am asking is off target here, can you direct me to right section of Forum? :question:

Respectfully, :)

North_Of_40

[Liz]

Great to hear Suzy!!!
So many goodies out there to observe now, and good luck with your love affair with M22. :love2: I will check it out again too!!

[Suzy]

Thanks Liz,
Say.. you do Messier Marathons, right? - As I'm only just beginning to explore this beautiful constellation, do any "spectacular" objects of interest come to mind to look at?
I'm having to source three different sources to get a list of targets together, I'm sure I'm going to be missing stuff. Can't wait for my new books to help me more.

[erick]

Did someone say "Messier Marathon"? :D

http://seds.org/messier/xtra/marathon/marathon.html

Of course, the ultimate challenge is to do all 110 objects, with a set of 7x50 binos, in numerical order over four nights in March, and from memory - no charts. :eyepop: I bet someone has done it!

[Liz]

Yes, we do Suzy, but only a couple nights of the year. It adds some fun, and gives people targets to hunt down.
I will put up the list shortly, of what we will do on Saturday night. :)

[jjjnettie]

Here's a link to "TUMOL" or "The Ultimate Messier Object Log".
Another Must Have piece of free software.:D
Each object has a star map to find it, a photo to identify it, it tells you how hard/easy it is to see through binoculars of different sizes. All this and much much more. I've printed mine out and put them in page protectors so I can have it with me next to the scope. But you can use it just as easy from the puter. http://www.davidpaulgreen.com/tumol.html

[Paddy]

'Tis indeed an amazing bit of sky. And thanks for the link. Very interesting

[renormalised]

That site you posted Suzy, take no notice of it. It's just another one of those "new age" sites purporting to know the answer to everything. There are so many reasons as to why we're not an ex-member of the Sagittarius Dwarf it's not funny, but the main reasons are the dynamics of our orbit about the galaxy and the physical composition of the Sun. For a start, the Sun doesn't have the same metallicity as any of the stars of the Sagittarius Dwarf. The stars in and from the dwarf have considerably less elements other than hydrogen and helium in their makeup as the Sun does. They couldn't have been born in the same cloud of dust and gas to begin with. Secondly the orbital dynamics are all wrong. This is something like the dwarf's second passage through the Galaxy. Even if we were detached from it in the first passage, our star would still have a very highly inclined and strongly elliptical orbit about the Galaxy's centre. Does it??....NO. The Sun orbits about the plane of the Galaxy in a moderately elliptical orbit which only varies above and below the plane of the Galaxy by about 30-50 parsecs. It's very much a member of the thin disk population of the Galaxy, not some interloper from outside. The reason for our orientation you see when compared to the Galaxy is that all the stars within the Galaxy, despite the fact they orbit it, have random orientation of their rotational axes i.e. their axes of rotation point in all directions. For instance, the star Vega. It's axis of rotation points directly at us, so you see it pole on. Some stars have the same orientation as we do, others don't. Our solar system just happens to be tilted at 55 degrees to the plane of the Galaxy. It was how it formed. Even the stars of the Sagittarius Dwarf have their own unique orientations, depending on how and where they formed in that galaxy.

These guys who come up with this nonsense don't understand even the basics of the science. The problem is, they read something about the subject they become interested in and then try to reconcile their own ideas with what they read. They take real science and twist it to suit their own agenda, which is usually to spread their particular ideas about how things are and what is going to happen. Just a quick and cursory look at their site will show you what they're on about and who they associate with. To say to take their site with a grain of salt would be adding insult to the grain of salt. Nothing of what they say has any basis in reality.

[Adelastro1]

I agree with Renormalised's view. Our sun is a second generation star, ie. has gone through a supernova explosion and re-formed, which makes it a fairly old star (much greater than 5 billion years, which is the age of the erath). The higher atomic number elements above iron (Fe) were formed in that explosion (normal fusion reactions in stars can only produce elements up to Fe, but supernovae produce much higher pressures to fuse elements together to give heavier elements). The Sag stars appear to be younger stars if they are all of similar composition and no elements above about He. If they are of similar size to our sun then they must be younger as they haven't burnt all their Hydrogen/helium yet.

[astroron]

The only thing he didn't mention in that article was the "Second Coming":rolleyes:

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks JJJ. Excellent software. I just wish that some of the clever people who write and compile these useful things took a trip Down Under for a couple of months to sample some Southern Hemisphere treasures.

[Suzy]

Carl & Wayne, thankyou so much for taking the time to explain that to me, I'm very grateful.

Gosh, I'm glad I popped this on my thread, otherwise I would have gone on to believe it. So confusing for Noobies you know, when you try to do the right thing and do some research and get wrong info like this. Thankfully, I am surrounded by intelligent people on here that can put me on the right track. If I may say, I am in constant awe of the amazing, intelligent, talented people on here. You lot included. :thanx:

Nettie, thankyou so much for that link - it is exactly what I'm looking for! :thumbsup: :thanx:

Erik, thankyou for that link, I will check it out soon! :thumbsup:

Ron, thankyou as well for your input.
See.. I took your advice and posted my first "observation" thread! Please keep guiding me, as I do very much appreciate what you say and any help you throw my way.

[Adelastro1]

Thanks Suzy. I'm constantly in awe of the science behind what we see in the skies and beyond, and everyone is just passing that info on to people like you and I... but yes there are lots of intelligent people on here too, especially when it ccomes to the technical sides of working with astronomical equipment!

[ngcles]

Hi Suzy, Carl & All,

Yes Suzy, Sagittarius is a very special patch of sky and there's lots and lots to see. If you are patient and have a 10" 'scope, there are probably more than 100 objects to see. Even with a 6" there are probably 50-odd that are a worthwhile look -- 20-odd of these are globular clusters. M8 and M20 are magnificent too.

There is a very good chance the Globular Cluster M54 is an "import" into the Milky Way galaxy and has been "donated" by the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical. It was likely either a massive G.C of that system (it is comparable in mass and luminosity to Omega Centauri) or may even be the dense remnant core of that galaxy that is resisting dissruption because of its compactness. Terzan 7, 8 and Arp GC 2 may also have been donated to the Milky Way by the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical along the way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_Dwarf_Elliptical_Galaxy

There are also several other G.Cs that are currently part of our Milky Way family but may well have been donated. Omega Centauri is one. NGC 2808, NGC 1851, NGC 2298 and M79 are others that might have been donated by the purported "Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major_Dwarf_Galaxy

The "Canis Major Dwarf" is still disputed. As it happens I have a friend at Sydney Observatory who is doing some work on resolving the question of whether it is a real dwarf or just an outer "bit" of the Milky Way.

There is also increasing evidence that the GC Terzan 5 isn't what it appears to be -- there is evidence it contains "dark-matter" for a start, three different bands of metallicity within its stars (like Omega Centauri) indicating it contains 3 different generations of stars and also has an very large number of millisecond pulsars (the highest number by a big margin). Its origin may also be "peculiar".

But as Carl said, our Sun and the solar-system are very much Milky Way born-and-bred for all the reasons he cited. As Carl wrote:

"These guys who come up with this nonsense don't understand even the basics of the science. The problem is, they read something about the subject they become interested in and then try to reconcile their own ideas with what they read. They take real science and twist it to suit their own agenda, which is usually to spread their particular ideas about how things are and what is going to happen. Just a quick and cursory look at their site will show you what they're on about and who they associate with. To say to take their site with a grain of salt would be adding insult to the grain of salt. Nothing of what they say has any basis in reality."

Spot-on Carl!

These folks are a bunch of very silly sausages -- pure and simple. They specialise in leaping to opinions that are without supporting evidence and contrary to well established science. Worse, they then proclaim it (loudly) as fact to the masses and denounce people who actually do have a grasp of the Science as being in a conspiracy with NASA and others to hide the truth from the world.

Frankly it is one of the big down-sides to the whole interweb-thingy.


Best,

Les D

[Suzy]

Thank you Les for all that wealth of information! It was really good reading!:thumbsup:. Thankyou for taking all that time and trouble.

[renormalised]

You're under a couple of misconceptions there. Yes, the Sun is a "2nd generation" star (probably more likely 20th generation, but I know what you mean), but it and the Earth are roughly the same age. We formed along with the Sun from the same cloud of gas and dust 4.657Ga ago. It formed a few million years quicker than we did, but close enough in time to be the same. The supernova you mentioned was probably the one (or one of a number of) that initiated the collapse of the cloud that eventually formed the Sun and the solar system. The Sun and the solar system most likely formed along with a couple of hundred other stars in an open cluster somewhere in the galaxy. Most of those stars have drifted apart from one another due to gravitational effects caused by other stars and the rest of the galaxy...which is the fate of all open clusters, to a greater or lesser extent (depending on where they are).

Most of the stars still left in and escaped from the Sagittarius Dwarf are all older than the Sun. They formed in gases that didn't have as much metal content as the gas we formed out of (due to its age and paucity of star formation). Because a star has less metals doesn't make it younger...some can be (depending on where they form), but less metals usually means a star is older. The gas it formed from hasn't been enriched by as many supernovae and outgassing from PN's over the length of time it was around for, before it formed those stars.

[renormalised]

You're also surrounded by people who have degrees in the subject, and many years of experience as amateurs as well:).

[astrospotter]

I always enjoy a nice 2 degree or so wide APO refractor view of M24. You get a very busy field of a ga-zillion stars broken up with some objects.

There are two great examples of dark nebula in B92 and the less obvious B93 (not as impressive as coal sack but still nice). Then there is a small but wonderful open cluster in there by the name of Ngc6603 with a very fine line of stars almost as if to give this open cluster a 'major axis'. There are other objects there but the planitary Ngc6567 does not catch ones eye and neither does SH2-39. There is another more 'crude' open cluster that sort of stands out called Cr469 that is 1/3 the way from the big dark nebula of B92 towards the nice fine open cluster of 6603.

Just a fun diversion and M24 can even be picked out visually so easy to find just 7 degrees North-West of M22

[Suzy]

Thankyou Mark! What you explained sounds fabulous. I will have a look - but the clouds need to buzz off first.:lol:

[Liz]

Yes, Mark has often very good advice. :thanx:

Our skies in Townsville are usually clear now for the next few months, come up for a visit Suzy ... at New Moon of course!!

[Suzy]

Thankyou Liz, and I am glad you are having clear skies at last. Now, if only we can!

Got all of my four books from Book Depostory - woohoooo! They came daily, across three days. It was like getting a pressie everyday :D. I do not know how they do this free shipping thing, really I don't :shrug:.

I am loving my selection of books! My first book that I received, "The Atlas of the Messier Objects" (how big and heavy is this?!), fantastic book, unfortunately had 4 pages worth of information ripped out in half. So I emailed them and they emailed me back within 10mts telling me they were dispatching a replacement. What service! I thanked them profusely for there quick response and service.

My other books, are exactly to a "T" what I need. "Stars and Planets" and "The Messier Objects". They will help me to observe the detail. They look and smell beautiful and new, but very soon they are going to have a whole heap of wear and tear afflicted on them! And those going to be okay, because I want to use them lots and lots.

Thankyou to all that recommended these fantastic books. You have helped me majorly in my astronomical hobby. I am so happy I have got these books!!!:D

[Liz]

wow!! great to hear Suzy!! Book addiction can be as bad (or good) as EP addiction. :lol:

[astroron]

Suzy, My Herschel 400 arrived today:D so with The Messier Atlas and Herschel 400, I have lots to keep me busy for a FEW years.:rolleyes:
I have probably observed a big % of both catalogues, but now am going to do both with the 16" as a project:astron: