HAS Site: Southern Spring Skies from Texas March 25, 2006
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Check out My Scorpius and Antares Area Page
Dick Locke's HAS Astrophotography Index

Antares and M4 area	Omega Centauri is  on my clusters page
Leo Galaxy Trio	Sombrero Galaxy, M104
M7, Ptolemy's Cluster	Antennae, or Ringtail Galaxies
NGC 6231, a nice open cluster near   IC 4628	NGC 2451 (just a picture here), an early evening open cluster.  I must say it looked great  in binoculars, and the picture doesn't do it justice.   This is in Puppis and was too far south for Messier to see.  See Lorenzin info below.
NGC 2477, (just a picture here) another nice cluster, in Puppis.  This was a fun early-evening target.  More info below.	Moon at 5:45 a.m. was about 12.5% illuminated, 26 days, 11 hours old

This page features some 3/25/06 Southern Spring Skies from Texas objects.  Aside from the Leo Trio & moon, I spent the night taking advantage of a some great astrophotography weather.  Temps gradually fell to the upper 30's at the end of the night and a high pressure area had settled over the entire state.  The cool weather helps keep noise down on my un-cooled Canon EOS 20Da.  Skies were clear and the seeing was steady.  All images prime focus using my Takahashi TOA 130 (a 5" APO refractor), and a Losmandy G-11 mount.

Dick Locke's HAS Astrophotography Index

NGC 2477 from SEDS: Burnham states this is "probably the finest of the galactic clusters in Puppis," but not in Messier's catalog and many other observing lists as it is situated to much south. However, where it comes sufficiently high over the horizon, it is a splendid rich cluster of over 300 stars, crowded in a 20' field, situated about 2.5 deg NW from 2.25 mag, extremely hot O5 supergiant Zeta Puppis (this star, at 2,400 light years distance, is one of the brightest stars known, with absolute mag -7.1, corresponding to 60,000 solar luminosities). The brightest star of NGC 2477 is of mag 9.81, the hottest of spectral type B8. The cluster's age has been estimated at about 700 million years (Sky Catalog 2000.0).

Object name: Lorenzin NGC 2451
Magnitude: 2.8
Object type: Open Cluster
Source catalog: Tomm Lorenzin 2000+
Common name: NGC 2451
Mag: 2.80
Constellation: PUP
Notes: 2.8M; 45' diameter; very, very bright and large! easily naked-eye visible; 40-plus 6 thru 8M members plus the brightest member of the group, 3.5M c PUP (SAO 198398), a distinctly brassy, spectral type K luminary; when combined with the group of stars 1 degs to WSW (no cluster designation - incl. d1, d2, d3 PUP), the view is reminiscent of the Double Cluster (h and Chi (c) PER); OPN CL N2477 is 1.5 degs to ESE; great area of the sky for binoculars!

 

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Copyright © 2006 by Dick Locke.  All Rights Reserved.
Contact and Image Usage Information