A Break In The Clouds

We had a clear evening for the first time in five days, which meant it was time for some more astronomy. Having recently acquired some astronomical observation planning software, I am back in the game of trying to see all the Messier objects.

A brief bit of explanation. Charles Messier was an 18th-century French astronomer and comet-hunter who made a catalogue of some 110 deep-sky objects that one might mistake for a comet. These objects are some of the most spectacular telescopic sights in Northern Hemisphere skies. Indeed, amateur astronomers have their own equivalent to a birder’s big day. In mid-to-late March it is possible to see all the Messier objects in a single night, an activity called a Messier marathon.

I am hardly fanatical enough to try to do a Messier marathon (or a big day birding event, for that matter), but February is a good month to start trying to see these over the period of several months. Last week I managed to sight M74, a galaxy which is very difficult to see in light-polluted skies. This evening I went the easy route and looked at the Orion Nebula (M42 and M43) and the Pleiades (M45). But high clouds in the west stopped me from trying to find the difficult galaxy M77 in the constellation Cetus.

I looked over towards the east at rising Jupiter. All four of the Galilean moons were in a line on one side of the planet—spectacular!