{"id":147,"date":"2005-09-23T20:43:41","date_gmt":"2005-09-23T20:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2014-08-07T13:10:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T13:10:54","slug":"amazing-what-you-can-see-with-a-pair-of-binoculars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/2005\/09\/23\/amazing-what-you-can-see-with-a-pair-of-binoculars\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazing what you can see with a pair of Binoculars!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nBeing in Cavan for a weeks well earned holidays I got my first look at a clear dark sky for a very very long time so out I went armed with no more than a simple pair of Binoculars (10&#215;50) for some hands on practical astronomy. It was great to see the Milkyway blazing across the sky, you just don&#8217;t see that in Maynooth.  You&#8217;ll be amazed at just how much you can see with just a pair of Binoculars that I got for 20 Euro in Lidle!<\/p>\n<p>Probably one of the hardest types of object to see without a telescope are galaxies but you&#8217;d still be amazed how many you can see with Binoculars, some practice and a clear dark sky. Tonight I managed to observe four:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Andromeda Galaxy (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m031.html\" title=\"M31\">M31<\/a>). Mind you that is not really saying much since you can see it with the un-aided eye under Cavan&#8217;s dark skes!<\/li>\n<li>The Triangulum Galaxy (<a title=\"M33\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m033.html\">M33<\/a>). This is one of my favourites because it is one of that rare class of objects that I can see relatively easily with my Binoculars but which is pretty much completely invisible in even the college&#8217;s 10&amp;quot; telescope because it is so big and spread out!<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"M81\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m081.html\">M81<\/a> &amp;amp; <a title=\"M82\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m082.html\">M82<\/a> in the plough. These are two galaxies that are stunning in a telescope but for some bizarre reason always seem to get over-looked by amateur astronomers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also had a look at the nicest of the Planetary Nebulae (dying stars), the Dumbbell Nebula (or <a title=\"M27\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m027.html\">M27<\/a> to Astronomers). Since most planetary nebulae are tiny you generally need a telescope to see them but M27 appears big on the sky because it is close to us so it&#8217;s within the range of my 20 Euro binoculars.<\/p>\n<p>I also did the rounds of the Globular clusters getting good views of the two easiest (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m013.html\" title=\"M13\">M13<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m003.html\" title=\"M3\">M3<\/a>) and also managed to glimpse the smaller, more compact and hence harder to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m015.html\" title=\"M15\">M15<\/a> in Perseus.<\/p>\n<p>I did of course also observe a few of the easiest objects to observe, Open Clusters:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As normal I kicked off proceedings by observing probably the easiest and most spectacular binocular object of them all, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/xtra\/ngc\/n0869.html\" title=\"Double Cluster\">Double Cluster<\/a> in Perseus (NG869 &amp;amp; NGC884). No matter how often you see this object it still looks stunning!<\/li>\n<li>I also got a look at another easy but beautiful cluster, <a title=\"M39\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m039.html\">M39<\/a>, which sits in the heart of the Milkyway in at the top of Cygnus.<\/li>\n<li>I also had a look at one of the cuter &#8216;clusters&#8217;, the <a title=\"Coat Hanger Cluster\" href=\"http:\/\/www.omahaastro.com\/vulpecula.htm\">Coat Hanger Cluster<\/a> which is, as it&#8217;s name suggests, a cluster of stars arranged in the shape of a coat hanger. It&#8217;s not strictly speaking a cluster but it is too cute not to checkout when you get the chance IMO.<\/li>\n<li>I also checked out one of my old favourites, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/xtra\/ngc\/i4665.html\" title=\"IC 4665\">IC4665<\/a> in Ophiuchus which is another realy easy to see cluster that almost no one knows about just because it didn&#8217;t make Charlie&#8217;s (Charles Messier&#8217;s) list.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, I also got my first ever look at <a title=\"M11\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seds.org\/messier\/m\/m011.html\">M11<\/a> in Scutum. TBH I only came across it by accident because I was randomly scanning the Milkyway, I had no idea it was so bright and easy to see!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being in Cavan for a weeks well earned holidays I got my first look at a clear dark sky for a very very long time so out I went armed with no more than a simple pair of Binoculars (10&#215;50) for some hands on practical astronomy. It was great to see the Milkyway blazing across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,505,501],"series":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astronomy","tag-deep-sky","tag-observation-log"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t9xK-2n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8001,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/8001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}