Exploring Auriga

[EpickCrom (Joe)]

Hi all. Amid heatwave and cloudy conditions in the southern half of the sky here in Perth last night, I took the opportunity to explore the northern half of the sky that was clear. The constellation Auriga was "well" placed low in the north so Auriga it was! All the following observations carried out using my 10 inch dobsonian:

14 Aurigae: Delightful double star! White primary with a fainter light blue companion. Seperation 9.8"

M 38: "The Starfish Cluster". Attractive open cluster shaped like an X. Does resemble a Starfish. Fairly rich and bright.

NGC 1907: Open cluster below M38. Faint and small, I needed 240x just to detect it. Looked rich with averted vision though. Must look better from the northern hemisphere.

Phi Aurigae: This star in within the nebula IC 417. I could not see the nebula, but the star field around Phi sure is beautiful.

M36. Nice rich open cluster. I resolved the double star SAO 58234 within it.

Not seen: IC 405 "The Flaming Star" nebula and NGC 1931. Clouds stopped play before I could get to see M 37. Overall a nice 30 min session in the deep north. Wishing you all clear skies!

Joe

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Excellent report Joe and an enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing.

We too, had an excellent night here in Hobart. Four of us met for a refractor “shoot out”. I’ll put a separate report together.

[EpickCrom (Joe)]

Originally Posted by Tinderboxsky

Excellent report Joe and an enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing.

We too, had an excellent night here in Hobart. Four of us met for a refractor “shoot out”. I’ll put a separate report together.

Thanks mate. Good to hear you had an excellent night over there in Hobart. Look forward to your report! Cheers