As first appeared in the July 2012 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle.

Image generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

“The muse is upon me… bring me a small lyre!” – Caesar (via Dom DeLuise)

I have come to the conclusion that the constellation Lyra is my favorite, as it has all of the qualities one looks for in a celestial marker for a student of astronomy history, an amateur astronomer, and a part-time musician (well, drummer). Within its defined borders reside a famed double-double star system, a planetary nebula, a small globular cluster, at least one reasonable galaxy, one of the brightest stars in our night sky, a near-perfect parallelogram (if these were brighter stars, they would rival the Belt of Orion in geometric significance to terrestrial observers), one corner of the largest asterism in the night sky (the so-named Summer Triangle), and a host of other stars and dimmer objects (including even a few comets right now). This great variety of objects all lie in a small piece of property just off the band of the Milky Way and, during the summer, they are all ideally suited to near-zenith or at-zenith observing.

For our overture, we begin with the history of this mythic instrument. Lyra has most oft been associated with the famed musician of olde Orpheus, where Orpheus’ lyre was disposed of in a river not long after Orpheus himself was disposed of by maenads despite Orpheus giving the performance of his life (or for his life as the case may have been, as his playing reportedly kept rocks and sticks at distance, requiring the maenads to forego accouterments and pluck Orpheus apart with their own hands). Zeus, with his ever-present eye for collector’s items, ordered the lyre placed in the heavens along with the eagle that recovered it (and some old drawings of the constellation still include a bird of some kind in the rendering).

The show continues with the frame of the lyre itself, rendered in the opening image as a parallelogram topped by a “T.” When I see the constellation, I don’t see the “T” as much as I see an additional triangle composed of Vega, ζ1 Lyr (a double-star that connects the triangle to the parallelogram), and ε1a/ε2a Lyr (far left of the image above, connected by the red line). Now then, ε1a/ε2a Lyr is a sight to behold in a telescope, as it is not one star, but instead a pair of binaries, meaning four stars total that resolve nicely under reasonable magnification (it is reported that, under ideal conditions, the two pairs themselves can be split naked eye). This famed “double-double” star is shown below in an image from the Harrison Telescopes website.

Vega is the fifth brightest star in the Night Sky (making it the sixth brightest star in our sky) and is the second star to appear during the summer months after Arcturus. During June and July, Vega first appears high in the North-Eastern Sky and is obvious to anyone waiting at Darling Hill for their eyes to adjust after sunset. This makes Vega an easy marker for anyone learning the Summer constellations, which then makes Lyra an easy constellation to get under one’s belt at the same time. The parallelogram (where one might imagine the plucked strings of the lyre to be) is oriented nearly North-South and runs along the neck of Cygnus the Swan, a Constellation embedded well into the river of stars that make up the Milky Way.

With the constellation of Lyra identified from its two prominent geometric themes, the search for the subtle tones in this constellation can continue. After M13 in Hercules and the famous M31, the object I learned to identify from the relative positions of stars was M57, the Ring Nebula. M57 sits like a tuning knob at the base of Lyra, almost centrally located between the binary star Sheliak and Sulafat. While far from the brightest object in the night sky, the Ring jumps out immediately even under low-power binoculars as something clearly not a pinpoint of light. New scope owners looking to find anything(!) in their scope are well-advised to consider M57 as a target for low-magnification observing, as the appearance of Sheliak and Sulafat in an eyepiece help to set bright boundary conditions between which to scan for the nebulous ring. On ideally clear and steady nights, the central star of the Ring is visible, although this can be a heroic undertaking for even seasoned pros. A comparison of what Hubble sees and what you’ll likely see is provided on the previous page.

Containing the Ring Nebula would be enough for any constellation to be noteworthy to an amateur astronomer, but Lyra is famous as being a host to yet another Messier object in the form of M56, captured above-right by Stu Forster in July of 2010. This small globular cluster has been tagged at 13.7 billion years of age and can be found most easily by drawing a straight line between Sulafat and Alberio (the head of Cygnus the swan) and scanning the midpoint with larger-aperture binoculars or a small telescope.

For those listening most intently to the orchestrations of this constellation, the irregular galaxy NGC 6745 is just visible in medium-sized telescopes (shown above from Hubble). NGC 6745 is decidedly less J. S. Bach and decidedly more John Cage, as 6745 is actually three galaxies in the process of a violent dance. Like a famous Big Band moving through a town of jazz combos, the largest galaxy is pulling stars from the two smaller galaxies, populating itself at the expense of the disrupted musicians.

There are even themes implied but not heard that enhance the complexities of Lyra. To date, over 13 exoplanets have been discovered in Lyra, at least three of which are attributed to the position of the Kepler Mission observing envelop just beyond Cygnus (see the image above, which shows Kepler frames just to the edge of Lyra).

- Happy Hunting, Damian

As first appeared in the May 2012 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle.

Image generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

We return to our circumpolar constellation discussion begun with the Jan/Feb/March 2012 issue (our first “quarterly” report) by scaling up the Northern Horizon towards Draco the Dragon.

Draco, like all reptiles, is a bit on the dim side. Most of its constituent stars are in the 3 to 4.5 Magnitude range, making it an easy target in dark skies but a bit of a hunt near larger cities. If you’ve never looked for it before, it rivals Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper) in terms of “meh” apparent brightness in the sky (so it is far less pronounced than the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia, the two most prominent Constellations in this part of the sky).

Your best bet for identifying the stars in Draco may be to start right at the head and work your way down (and around, then over, then up, then way over the other way). One of my recent discoveries is that the head of Draco is, itself, a noted asterism (or noteworthy arrangement of stars that are not of the proper 88 Constellations) referred to as “The Lozenge” (“1″ in the image above). I had been subconsciously thinking of Monty Python references to throw into this article and realized that saying “The Lozenge” several in a low John Cleese voice a la “The Larch” just about does it. The head of Draco is made from the brightest stars in the Constellation and does make for a reasonably easy target, as it sits between the two bright stars of the Little Dipper’s bowl (“2″ In the image at right) and Vega (“3″), the ridiculously bright star making its triumphant return to Spring skies (if you’re at Darling Hill near sunset, you will see Vega as one of the first stars to appear above the Eastern Horizon well before it gets really dark). For those of you familiar with the Keystone (another famed asterism) that makes up the torso of Hercules (“4″ in the image above), simply drive your eyes to the left-ish during the early night.

The historical origins of Draco as a lizard of any kind are localized to the Mediterranean, and these origins go back far enough that Draco is one of the Almagest’s Original 48. The Greeks, and so the Romans, saw Draco as a Dragon (or, at least, lizard) of generally ill repute. Draco was seen by the Greeks as a guard of Hesperides’ golden apples and/or a guard (or target, depending on how you read the sentence) of Jason’s mythical golden fleece. The Romans saw Draco as the remains of the dragon killed by their goddess Minerva. It is perhaps fitting that, if you imagine Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper) as an ax on a questionably straight handle, then Draco is precariously on the celestial chopping block preparing to be cleft in twain.

The body of Draco is a healthy mix of single and double stars. In the boring single star category are Giausar, Thuban, and Nodus I. The double star list includes Edasich, Aldhibain, Altais, Rastaban (“eh mahn!”), Eltanin, and Grumium.

Thuban is one star in Draco to spend a bit of time on. In fact, it’s one to spend several thousand years on. As late as 2700 B.C.E., Thuban held the place of Polaris as our North Star. The Earth may seem reasonably unchanging with respect to the seemingly unchanging arrangement of stars of our 100-year-ish lifetimes, but on the geological or cosmological timescales our Earth is as dynamic and fast-moving as that famed clay dreidel. The 26,000-year cycle we know as the precession of the equinoxes (shown above) is one of those processes that requires nearly the entire history of what we know as civilization to mark significant timespans for, but it is reported in several places that Thuban was of significance to the Egyptians in their building of the pyramids over 5 millennia ago (I would be happy to report that Thuban was the North Star that the main shaft of the great pyramid of Cheops was aligned to, but I’ve found conflicting reports online from otherwise reputable locations, so will simply report that the Egyptians very likely knew that this star appeared to move far less over the course of the night than any other and, therefore, held it with great regard).

For those observing at Darling Hill or anywhere south of Syracuse, Draco is a tough reptile to sustain one’s astronomical appetite on. At least two comets are currently passing through Draco at the moment. One, LINEAR (C/2011 F1), is just off the Spindle Galaxy M102 (we’ll come back to that) and, at 3 a.u. and closing, may improve beyond its apparent magnitude of 12.5. Draco also hosts Garradd (C/2008 P1) far beyond its tail star. At an apparent magnitude of 21.30, you have absolutely NO chance of seeing this comet from Darling Hill.

Draco is regrettably light on deep sky objects as well. The local color (at about 3400 light year) is provided by NGC 6543, known as the Cat’s Eye Nebula (above). This is regarded as one of the most structurally complex nebulae in the Night Sky, although this complexity is only revealed through astrophotographic studies. NGC 5866 (below), also known as the Spindle Galaxy (which is very likely Messier 102, although some debate exists), is one of the great photographic sights in astronomy to my eyes. This edge-on galaxy view produces amazing density of material and spindly, fibrous clouds of dust and stars along the plane of the galaxy and a bright glow of stars all around this dense, dark line.

Now, the long curving body of Draco and its positions near the North Star does afford it one benefit in the Northern Horizon. Satellites! There are many bright (brighter than magnitude 4.0) satellites that follow paths over the Earth’s poles, meaning those Constellations near the North and South poles are constantly getting pierced by manmade weather, communications, and “other” satellites. Simply letting my copy of Starry Night Pro go at high-speed with Draco at the center reveals over a dozen of these satellites over the course of just a few hours.

As first appeared in the October 2010 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle (PDF).

Constellation Map generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

I remember my first foray into Constellation memorization, still the first thing I recommend for anyone beginning in amateur astronomy (primarily for using these imagined creations to memorize the locations of far dimmer objects when you graduate up to binoculars or small scopes, but also simply to develop a sense of, well, the space between these creations as you jump between objects).

Orion, yeah yeah… Scorpius, O.K. obvious… The body of Sagittarius looks like a teapot, that’s not bad… Cassiopeia is the great big “W” Jonathan Winters discovered in “It’s a Mad … Mad World“… The “Dippers” are dippers… Canis Minor is composed of two stars, and they happen to be in a straight line! At least it contains a bit of animal lore and the great Procyon. That should be easy to find.

Ah! Triangulum. A famed triangle of stars. Named after the famed shape called “The Triangle,” and believed to be the last Constellation drawn out by Ptolemy as one of the original 48 Constellations of Antiquity. It bet it was supposed to be “The Great Northern Spearhead,” but Ptolemy must have been a pacifist. It is believed he committed it to papyrus at 4:50 p.m. on a Friday before the scribes began copying the first edition Monday morning.

I have to admit, this Constellation seemed like an odd member of the original series, if for no other reason than the seemingly minimal amount of work (or so I thought) that must have gone into its creation. As I hope to convey to you in the next few paragraphs, this little Constellation has stood the test of time for a few good reasons.

To begin, the heart of Triangulum dates back all the way to the Babylonians (which means it likely also dates back further into pre-recorded history) who, with the inclusion of what we now know as γ-Andromeda, called this Constellation MUL.APIN, or “The Plough.” With this simple extension added in red in the image above, I hope the resemblance is now obvious. To my technologically-biased mind, the nondescript triangle of the modern sky instantaneously becomes the (seemingly) everlasting testament to the power of agriculture and the shining reminder to all of the simple tool responsible for the creation of a commodity we know today as “surplus.” I don’t think that’s going too overboard in the description.

You are here.

We have these “organic farming” discussions where people ask you “Where do you think your food comes from?” It has been quite a recent phenomenon in the long history of this little sphere Carl Sagan referred to as a “Pale Blue Dot” (that’s you at right) that the members of a society have been relieved of the strain of producing for themselves by technology that improves efficiency and, more importantly, vastly increases quantity. If I take the comparison to the extreme, the Constellations that represented tools or deities have been replaced in many societies by the gigantic billboards that celebrate the financial well-being of companies continuing their crusade to relieve you of your currency, an economic reality impossible in a society where everyone’s working entirely to maintain a base subsistence level. The world remains in transition towards a time when all are at the same technological level as the First World countries (and it is only a matter of time), meaning something as simple to many of you reading this as an animal-driven plough remains a vital key to survival in other parts of the world.

I vote we re-designate the “Summer Triangle” as the “Summer Plough!”

While it may have been a signal for a Late-Summer party at the very beginning of some harvest, the Babylonians used the presence of their Triangulum to mark the “Way of Enlil,” the apparent path of the Sun after the Summer Solstice. In a society that used the Heavens as their Calendar, this simple Constellation took on a wholly more significant meaning.

Thanks to wikipedia, I know that a more recent attribution (to only the Triangle, not the Plough) of this Constellation is to the goddess Ceres, who successfully convinced the god Jupiter to add the island of Sicily (at left, the football that the boot of Italy appears to be kicking towards the U.S.) to the Night Sky (perhaps a preferred way to leave your mark in history, esp. given the alternative taken by Atlantis).

Sicily, featuring an active Mount Etna (Image by Jacques Descloitres, NASA MODIS Land Rapid Response Team).

Given this most interesting history, is there anything to actually do with a pair of eyes or an eyepiece in this part of the sky? I’m pleased to report that this part of the sky is actually quite busy (the Star Map at this beginning of this article is about as busy as one can get without looking at Sagittarius), with Triangulum serving as a useful anchor for finding a number of objects in our Eastern sky this month.

M33, the Triangulum Galaxy. Photo by Hunter Wilson.

As it happens, one of the precious few naked eye galaxies (provided ideal viewing conditions) in the Northern Sky lies just to the South (to the right as you’re looking at it) of α-Tri. M33 (at right), appropriately named the “Triangulum Galaxy,” is a member of the Local Group of galaxies (the most famous member being our Milky Way, the second most famous being the Andromeda Galaxy) and, at 2.9 million light years away, lies (by some estimates) 700,000 light years farther from us than the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) AND, according to measurements using the Very Long Baseline Array, is moving at 190 km/second relative to us and towards M31 (the demolition derby will not be pleasant for M33, given it contains only 4% of the stars of M31 (how many mopeds are there in a semi-rig?). It is still under debate as to whether or not M33 is a companion galaxy to the more massive M31 (they do share proximity), but it certainly stands on its own as a spectacle in a good telescope on a dark night. This first recorded observation (it all comes down to paper) is attributed to Giovanni Battista Hodierna around 1650 (above at left), the most famous recorded observation (it all comes down to publication) can be given to Charles Messier (above at right) on August 25-26, 1764 (now that’s bookkeeping!).

Giovanni Battista Hodierna (left) and Charles Messier (right).

All of the other objects in the boundaries of Triangulum are dim (10>^th order or dimmer), making your time spent with moderate optics in this area short compared to the time you’d likely spend just on M31 alone. As a good practice for the next Messier Marathon, you can use M33 (*1) and M31 (*2) to mark the Southern side of a rectangle composed of M33, M31, M34 (*3) and M76 (*4, these last two are right on the Perseus-Andromeda border). As M33 will give you M32 and M101, that’s a quick-six to check off as you plough your way through the list of 110.

Comet Hartley 2 and NGC 457 (the E.T. Cluster). Photo by SAS member Stu Forster.

AND, as long as were in this neck of the woods (and the tree line in this part of the sky at Darling Hill is now just becoming more bearable to the impatient observer with the falling of leaves), we can use the Babylonian form of Triangulum to quickly point our way to M76, then slowly walk the Telrad to the North (left) until we reach the Southern Double of the famed Double-Double, which then puts into view both members of the Perseus Double-Double Cluster (NGC 884 and NGC 869) and Comet Hartley 2, which is working its way through our neighborhood. Our own Stu Forster managed to capture Hartley (green glow at left) as it passed through the local neighborhood of NGC 457, more commonly known as the Owl or E.T. Cluster (yes. tha E.T., the two bright eyes work for both).

Clear skies, Damian

As first appeared in the September 2010 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle (PDF).

Constellation Map generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

The Constellation this month is one light on interesting binocular and telescope objects but heavy in mythology and Naked Eye observing. To the Babylonians, the stars in this region also (or first) took on the shape of a horse known as MUL.ANSHE.KUR.RA. To the Greeks, sometimes a horse is not (just) a horse (of course, of course). The Greek mythology surrounding the winged horse Pegasus is, to say the least, involved and undecided. There are several pages discussing the mythology of Pegasus, which I refer you to in the interest of local brevity.

The torso of Pegasus is composed of a “Great Square” of stars that is very easy to see and is very often pointed out to visitors at this time of year at Darling Hill. This asterism (simply any grouping of stars that are not officially constellations) lies to the right (or south) of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), one of the great views in the Autumn skies. As the scope is pointed in this direction anyway for a good block of time during Public Viewing sessions, the walk through some of the nearby Constellations (Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus, Cepheus) reads like a Cliff Notes version of both Clash Of The Titans movies (unless John McMahon is running the presentation, in which case you’re guaranteed a much better show). In the modern definition of the Constellations, the south-most (or upper left corner) star belongs instead to the Constellation Andromeda (but anyone staring at this part of the sky would be hard pressed to be struck more by the “Great Triangle” of Pegasus than the “Great Square” of Pegasus).

There are only two significant (and visually accessible) objects within Pegasus (the Constellation, that is) for the binocular and telescope viewer at Darling Hill. The first of these is the appropriately named Pegasus Cluster (M15), an ancient globular cluster clocked at 13.2 billion years of age. This cluster appears as a smaller version of M13 in Hercules, as captured by our own Stu Forster in the September 2008 Member Gallery and shown below. The second object is a far more difficult find, the very unique spiral galaxy NGC 7742 (below). The presence of a prominent ring in this galaxy (or, more specifically, the absence of pronounced spiraling from the center of the galaxy out to the edges) is a point of unexplained inquiry in modern astrophysics.

M15, photo taken by SAS member Stu Forster.

NGC 7742, image from the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA).

The most curious content on the wikipedia page for Pegasus involves the nontrivial amount of discussion about the reinterpretation of its connectivity by one H. A. Rey in, specifically, his book The Stars — A New Way To See Them. Rey’s goal in this book is to redefine connectivity of some of the Constellations to make them a bit easier to see as the mythical beasts they are known for. For Pegasus (see below), Rey has eliminated any mention of Sirrah (or Alpheratz, as it’s known within Andromeda), using the Great Square as a Great Triangle that marks the above-the-shoulder wings over the trapezoid torso (with the rest of the limbs along the southern edge of the Constellation). Upon inspection, his reinterpretation looked more to me like one of the drawings of The Man In The Yellow Hat who, along with Curious George, is perhaps the more famous of the illustrated characters created by H. A. Rey.

A new view of an old constellation, or The Batman In The Yellow Hat.

I’ll admit I’m mildly ambivalent about the redefinition of Constellation connectivity. On the one hand, the Constellations are one of the oldest memes in human history among all societies (extant or extinct) and, to that end, connectivity has meaning as a way of marking out specific arrangements that have largely stood the test of time. The consistency of connectivity also provides a way to reduce the memorization fatigue that comes from having to see groups of stars in slightly different ways (clearly, one arrangement is easier to know and explain than several). This is of further significance when one uses Constellations as a specific guide to locating Messier (or other) objects. If I tell you that “M15 is on an almost straight line about 1/2 the distance of the two stars that make up the snout,” you really have to trust that we’re seeing the same horse!

On the other hand, there are many amateur astronomers who use Constellations largely as tools for finding smaller objects (with or without a knowledge of their history) and, as we are a species that excels at pattern recognition (how many flying faces and hippopotami can you see on a partly cloudy afternoon?), anything that makes life easier for you the observer (especially on cold nights when observing time is at a premium) should be added to your observing arsenal. H. A. Rey’s interpretation of Pegasus connectivity might cloud just how pronounced the Great Square is (so you have to then present this Constellation with an addendum!), but it certainly does look more like a complete flying horse than the common artistic rendering of only the front half (clearly the side you’d want to have over you anyway given both choices).

Any way you look at it, it’s still safe to assume that the winged horse must have been the most efficient way to travel in the ancient world. It certainly speeds up a good plot.

Clear skies, Damian

As first appeared in the August 2010 edition of the Syracuse Astronomical Society newsletter The Astronomical Chronicle (PDF).

Constellation Map generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

Those who’ve ever been told that “there are more fish in the sea…” should be relieved that we only cast our visual nets to the heavens for stars and galaxies, as this most important of animals throughout history is only represented in the Northern Hemisphere by one pair of gilled swimmers tied at the tails.

The identification of one-half of this constellation as a fish (its other half had originally been a dove) dates back to at least Babylonian times, when a second great Western civilization prospered in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the West of Egypt, home of the first great Western civilization at the Nile Delta. The two civilizations from which most of the astrology (and mythology) that turned into early astronomy was established were founded by key water sources, providing the means for irrigation, transportation, and stable food supplies in the form of fishing, the three key needs of a society that allow for growth and the ability of the few to support the many (as James Burke has considered in Connections and The Day The Universe Changed, the ability of people to NOT need to provide subsistence level support for a society is what promotes scientific growth, cultural evolution, and whatever other types of activities most of us attend to everyday while some small fraction of the U.S. harvests or raises the food that the rest of us consume with hasty abandon). The Greeks eventually solidified the tied-fish representation of Pisces, representing Aphrodite and Eros, tied to one another during their escape from the god Typhon (You can guess how he rolled… In this case, the two were tied so as not to loose one another in the river Euphrates).

This constellation is reasonably large in visual real estate compared to other members of the Zodiac, but is occupied by fairly unremarkable stars, making Pisces one of the less prominent objects in the sky (it is possible you know the location of Pisces by looking below the more pronounced square of Pegasus). Pisces is made pronounced currently by its having caught Jupiter and Uranus at its Southern side, with Jupiter now making its way through Pisces (with a small fraction of time in Cetus) on its way into Aries this time next year. Most all observers will have Jupiter in their scopes at some point this Summer and Fall, giving them a chance to take in a second of the large gas giants in our Solar system as well as one solitary Messier Object within the Pisces boundary while having to move their scopes only slightly.

The only Messier Object within the Pisces boundary is M74, a less-pronounced cousin of the also face-on Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). In Hubble images (below), the bright cloudiness almost shrouds the spiral quality of the galaxy. An infrared image taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope (below) reveals a pronounced web-like quality to this galaxy, as well as some greater definition in the M74 spiral shape.

M74, image from NASA, ESA and the GMOS Commissioning Team.

Infrared image of M74 taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

For those attempting to check two planets of their list while memorizing the shape of Pisces, the image below provides you a reasonable cheat-sheet for how to hop from the very prominent (magnitude of -3) Jupiter (“1″) to the markedly less prominent (magnitude 5.75) Uranus (“3″). You’ll note in the image that the four famous Galilean Satellites of Jupiter (Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa) are virtually on top of one another at this “magnification,” giving you an idea of how far the motion will be to find Uranus in your eyepiece. From among the many (invisible) other moons of Jupiter (all of the labels in this image are just a fraction of the total count to date), you’ll note a 6th magnitude star at position “2″, the brightest other object in the sky in this area. A slow, cautious scope motion to your south-east (and low magnification to start) will help you capture a view of this small blue-ish globe, a fitting color to search for within this aquatic constellation.

Finding Uranus starting at Jupiter. Map generated with Starry Night Pro 6.

Clear skies, Damian