Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the constellation Lacerta, Pinwheel Galaxy, and Mirach's Ghost.
Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS.
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Hello, I’m Astronomy magazine senior editor Michael Bakich. Each week, I highlight three different night-sky targets for you to see:
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One object you can find without optical aid
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One object to find with a small telescope, and
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One deep-sky object to find with an 8-inch or larger telescope for you avid astronomers.
A stellar lizard
This week’s naked-eye object is the small, faint constellation Lacerta the Lizard. Talk about a loser! Lacerta contains none of the 200 brightest stars, no named star, no meteor shower, and no Messier object. It does contain one notable deep-sky object: open cluster NGC 7243, which shines at magnitude 6.4.
What’s worse, no celestial map pictured Lacerta prior to 1690. In that year, Johannes Hevelius included it, and six other new constellations, in his star atlas Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia, totum Coelum Stellatum. Now that’s a mouthful.
Look for Lacerta directly south of Cepheus and roughly 20° east of Deneb, Cygnus the Swan’s brightest star. Don’t get your hopes up. Lacerta’s Alpha star glows only at magnitude 3.8.
Galactic neighbor
This week’s small telescope target is one of Messier’s great galaxies: the Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum (M33). And although French comet-hunter Charles Messier independently discovered the Pinwheel in 1764, another astronomer had seen it 110 years earlier.
Although you can glimpse M33 with your naked eyes from a dark site, this galaxy covers more than 1° of sky, so its surface brightness is low. In fact, it’s a lot harder to find than its magnitude 5.7 brightness would lead you to believe. Binoculars and small telescopes will help you gauge its overall shape, but to probe its luminous knots and star-forming regions, you’ll need at least a 10-inch scope.
A ghostly sight for Halloween
This week’s deep-sky object is Mirach’s Ghost, also known as NGC 404. Amateur astronomers call this magnitude 10.3 elliptical galaxy Mirach’s Ghost because it lies only 6.8' from 2nd-magnitude Mirach (Beta [β] Andromedae). As you might imagine, a 10th-magnitude galaxy next to that bright a star is pretty difficult to see.
This S0 galaxy — a type that has the disk shape of a spiral galaxy but no spiral arms — lies roughly 30 million light-years from Earth. Use high magnification to increase the contrast between the galaxy and the bright star. NGC 404 looks round and bright with an intense center. And don’t fret too much about the glare from Mirach. There’s no detail to be seen in the galaxy.
And that’s this week’s night-sky highlights.
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Last week's episode: Constellation Triangulum the Triangle, Double Cluster in Perseus, and the spiral galaxy NGC 891
Last week's transcript