Stargazing News - February 13th, 2025
From
CJ@21:2/156 to
All on Wed Feb 12 06:09:24 2025
Thursday, February 13, 2025
A Battle Cruiser in Orion's Shield (evening)
At the end of Orion's western arm, a crooked, up-down string of six medium- bright stars form his shield, or a lion's skin. Interestingly, those stars are all designated as Pi1,2,3,4,5,6 Orionis. The open cluster designated NGC 1662 or Collinder 55 is located 1.6ø to the WNW of Pi1 Orionis, the top star in the shield. The magnitude 6.4 cluster should be visible as a small patch in 10x50 binoculars. In any size of telescope, look for a tiny, diamond-shaped asterism flanked by an 11 arc-minutes-long row of blue and yellow stars aligned SE-NW. It resembles a bird riding an air current. In Sue French's Deep Sky Wonders (Firefly, 2011), she compares the pattern to the lights of a Klingon battle cruiser. No danger, though - it is 1,450 light-years away from us. Additional members of the cluster are spread over 20 arc-minutes of sky.
(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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* Origin: CJ's Place, Orange City FL > cjsplace.thruhere.net (21:2/156)