AURIGA’S THREE JEWEL-LIKE OPEN CLUSTERS!

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      Overhead in February evenings at 8 PM, the pentagon of AURIGA contains three beautiful star clusters.

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The yellow star of CAPELLA is the brightest star in the constellation and is the fourth brightest star in mid-northern latitudes.

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Capella marks one corner of the pentagon, while the  other stars are Menkalinan (Beta), Theta, El Nath (joins Taurus) and Iota.

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       Capella is a G0III white/yellow giant sun at 46 light years distant. It shines at `-0.1 Apparent Magnitude. Recently, Capella has found to be a double star.

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As to the  three star clusters, they are easily located by using a 3 inch diameter telescope in my moderately dark sky backyard in Thousand Oaks, Ca.

All were discovers by French astronomer Charles Messier in the 1700’s.

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        My photos were taken by my 4” ED Refractor at 900mm at f/9, 3 minutes exposures, Canon DSLR camera at the dark skies of Borrego Springs.

 

M- 36:  A fairly rich star cluster that resembles a “Y” pattern. 4,100 Light years distant  R.A. 5h 32m Dec +34 degrees.

 

M-37:  A very rich and compressed star cluster. Very impressive of the three clusters mentioned here. Beautiful at 100x!  4,600 Light years distant  R.A. 5h 49m Dec +32 degrees

 

M-38:  Pretty star cluster that has an “X” pattern of stars. 4,200 Light years distant.

 

 

 R.A. 5h 25m  Dec .+36 degrees

 

Clear Night Skies!

 

--Hal Jandorf

   Astronomy Professor, Moorpark College