Objects of deep sky such as nebulae, galaxies, supernovas remains: there are many cosmic pearls hidden in the dark. Accustomed to seeing the celestial bodies in the photographs offered by the large space telescopes, it may seem impossible to appreciate them with domestic instruments. However, many of these space objects are even shown in the lenses and mirrors of the binoculars. Here is a selection of celestial bodies that you can see with simple binoculars.
Great Orion Nebula
NASA, ESA, M. ROBBERTO (SPACE TERESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/ESA) AND THE HUBBLE SPACE TERESCOPE ORION TREASURY PROJECT TEAM
The giant Orion, under the three stars of the belt, offers one of the greatest shows, namely, M42, the Great Orion Nebula. Already at first glance you can glimpse, but with binoculars or a telescope is shown in all its beauty. It extends to 12 light years, to 1,300 light years from the earth, and in it hundreds of thousands of new stars are born at the same time.
Perseus double cluster
NGC 869 and NGC 884 are two open stellar clusters located in the Perseus constellation, bordering on the Casiopea constellation. These clusters are separated by about 7,500 light years and are formed by young stars, of less than 20 million years.
Andromeda Galaxy
Photography: VW PICS/Getty Images
Under a dark sky it can already be seen with the naked eye: it is the most distant object visible to the naked eye. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a giant spiral galaxy, greater than the Milky Way, located 2.5 million light years. This galaxy is slowly merging with ours and in the next billion years it will become a large spiral.
Cumulus of the Pleiades
The Blue Details of M45: The Pleiades © Sandor Biliczki (Hungary)The Blue Details of M45: The Pleiades © Sandor Biliczki (Hungary)
In mythology they are the Celeno, Alción, Electra, Mérope, Maia, Esterópe and Taigete sisters; In reality there are about 1,000 stars, together with gravity in an open stellar cluster. Newborn stars, very hot, still wrapped by a remnant of the nebula for which they formed. Pleiades can also look good at the naked eyebut with a small optical instrument they are shown throughout their wonder.
An X -ray emission, from the hallus nebula, reveals that a planet of the size of Jupiter is being disintegrated by a white dwarf.
Saturn nebula
Photography: that/j. Walsh
NGC 7009, whose form reminds in a way to that of a gaseous giant, is a planetary nebula, one of the many that we could find in a small instrument. These colored clouds are born when a star like the sun dies. The stars of this size become red giants and then lose their outer layers to form a nebula. In the center is a white dwarf, what was once the nucleus of the star.
Cluster of the Nativity
The clog cluster is about 600 light years from Earth, one of the closest to us. Even at first glance it can be seen as a brilliant point in the constellation of cancer, but hidden at that point there are hundreds of stars, many of mass similar to that of the sun.
Rosetta Nebula
5,000 light years away, in the constellation of the unicorn, is Rosetta’s nebula, a cloud of gas and dust of 100 light years. In its center is the open stellar cluster NGC 2244.
Hercules great cluster
In the constellation of Hercules is one of the greatest wonders of the deep sky: the great globular cluster of Hercules, or M13. It is a cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars united by gravity and located 22 thousand light years from the earth. This globular cluster can be seen in the middle of summer, even with the naked eye as a diffuse glow, but with a telescope or prismatic is shown in all its beauty.
Crab nebula
Illustration: Handout; Getty Images
In 1054, Chinese astronomers observed a great glow among Taurus’s horns. With our telescopes, we find what remains of that phenomenon in that place. The first object of the Messier catalog, the crab nebula, is a so -called “rest of Supernova”, that is, what remains of that old explosion. In the center of the nebula is the pulsar of the crab, one of the most studied neutrons stars in history, which turns on itself 33 times per second.
Bode Galaxy
M81, A Grand Design Spiral Galaxy© Holden Aimar (USA)
M81 is a beautiful spiral galaxy located 12 million light years in the constellation of the Osa Mayor. It is a very bright galaxy, located in a region of the sky always above the horizon, and therefore also one of the most frequently observed objects by fans.
Article published in Wired Italy. Adapted by José Carlos Oliva.
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