I hope you had the time and some good weather to check out the winter patterns I wrote about last month. As you can see there is more than just the usual show stopper - Orion Nebula. However, before we continue our journey, there is breaking news; a new comet visible in the early morning sky will be seen over the next couple of weeks. Now glimpsed in binoculars, Comet Pojmanski was discovered on January 2nd of this year. You can spot our interstellar visitor away from light sources, low in the southeast skies about an hour and a half before sunrise. The comet appears to the left of brilliant Venus and is moving eastward until it slides below Delphinus (the Dolphin) on March 10th. It will pass closest to the Earth on March 5th at a distance of 115 million kilometres. Reports indicate the comet does sport a small thin gas tail along with its nucleus. After our close encounter on the 5th, it quickly recedes and dims on its way back to the far reaches of the solar system.

Now back to the winter sky. Making a pit stop at the famous twins, Gemini is also the northernmost member of the zodiac family. Castor located 52 light-years and Pollux 34 light-years from us, are true beacons, shining at magnitudes 1.6 and 1.2 respectively. Castor appears to the naked eye and low power binoculars as a single star. However using a telescope, we now split the image into two dots very close together. Though too close to separate optically, each of these is doubles as well. These systems are named Castor A and B with another invisible pair designated C. So Castor is a close three double-star systems. Be sure to visit the Lord of the Rings – Saturn, located a bit more than thirteen degrees southeast of Pollux. Saturn stays close to the Beehive cluster (M44) till June when we lose it in the solar glare. As it orbits the Sun, one Saturnian year lasts 29.5 years and comes back to the same spot in each orbit. However, Saturn and the Beehive will be to close to the Sun for almost thirty years from now. We will have to wait till early September 2064 to catch them in the September morning sky.

There are a few open clusters associated with Gemini with the leader being M35 located some 2,800 light-years away. This lovely splash of about 100 suns appears as wide as the full moon (30 arc minutes or a half of a degree) in telescopes. It glows at magnitude 5.3, visible to the naked eye from a dark site but use binoculars. For a challenge, readers owning larger telescopes can try locating NGC 2158 very close and just northeast of M35. This tightly packed cluster living about five times as far as M35 can almost be mistaken as a globular cluster. For a galactic challenge, might I suggest NGC2683 northeast of Pollux. Dubbed the “UFO Galaxy”, this tenth magnitude edge-on spiral was discovered by William Herschel in February 1788 and is an estimated sixteen million light-years from us.

Another change of pace from this minefield of open clusters is NGC 2392, the remains of dying star known as the Eskimo or Clown Face Nebula. With my twelve-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, I picked up this fuzzy image at 74 power and still saw the bright central portion. The image quality improves by increasing power.

Canis Minor is the smaller of Orion’s two hunting dogs. Procyon is located a little more than eleven light-years from us and is a subgiant star commencing its death process as it uses up its sparse fuel. Procyon is also part of the Winter Triangle, whose other two members are Sirius (the Dog Star) and Betelgeuse (Orion’s left shoulder)

NGC 2244 in Monoceros is more commonly referred to as the Rosette Nebula. This huge complex measures about one and a half lunar diameters and is a young stellar nursery. Solar winds and radiation from the young stars in the middle of the cluster have cleared out any lingering gas. Another unique object is the Cone Nebula designated NGC 2264. This gaseous region is also part of the Christmas Tree Cluster and they both share the same catalogue number.

Our next stop is the Dog Star named Sirius. Located a mere 8.6 light-years down the road, blazing at magnitude (-1.5) Sirius has a very faint 8th magnitude companion, extremely close to the parent star. I have seen Sirius B only on a couple of occasions. In fact, the term “dog days of summer” refer to this very star. In the old days, people believed since Sirius and the Sun appeared in the summer, the heat from Sirius along with the Sun made for a few very hot summer days. This is, of course, a false statement, move down to M41 and witness a lovely open cluster showing many impressive, bright members. Another lovely dense open cluster is M46 located to the left of the Dog Star is about 5,600 light-years away. Harbouring a tenth magnitude planetary nebula, NGC2438 is something out of the ordinary. A small nebula measuring only 1.1 arc minute across, is not part of the cluster but a line of sight object. It lays a bit more than halfway between M46 and us. Before we leave the winter sky, let us check an eighth magnitude reflection nebula M78 in Orion. At 1,600 it is only one of two reflection nebulas appearing on Messier’s list.

On March 5th, the Pleiades, crescent Moon and Mars will make a stunning trio. The vernal equinox announcing spring in the northern hemisphere and fall in the south occurs on March 20th at 18:26 Universal Time (UT). The days are now getting progressively longer. Our Moon is scheduled to enter the outer portion of the Earth shadow know as penumbral eclipse on March 14th at 23:35 UT and will hardly be noticeable.

Until next month – clear skies everyone.

Gary Boyle