Stargazing at its best!

Recently I was able to observe stars, a galaxy and a planet at Three College Observatory near Greensboro. We had an incredibly clear night for observation and it was a new moon which meant no light interference from our near neighbor.

We saw Jupiter and four of the moons. These are the Galilean moons; Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.  We could see the cream and brown colored stripes in Jupiter and these 4 of over 60 moons that revolve around the largest planet in our solar system. If you can hold your binoculars very still or even have just a small telescope at home, you can see these moons. Jupiter is high overhead now, found in the constellation Gemini, just beside Orion. Since Jupiter is a planet, a wanderer, its position in months to come will change and it will be associated with a different constellation. This link shows Jupiter's path from 2012 - July 2014. You can see that its motion through the constellations has changed.

There was a supernova that was recently observed and is now fading.  It is in a galaxy that is seen on edge, M82, and has a star in it that recently exploded. Here is more information about how the galaxy looked before and after the supernova.

A star cluster, NGC 2539 On this link you can see this star cluster and many more. Clusters contain hundreds of millions of stars.

Cassiopeia was beautiful when we went outside to look at constellations. Tonight it looked like a backwards 3. Depending on what part of the year you are observing in the early evening, it may be below Polaris and look like a W, or if east of Polaris will look like a 3, and if above Polaris will look like an M. It is a circumpolar constellation, so we see it all year. One of the stars in Cassiopeia also exploded in a supernova in the 1660's. The images of Cassiopeia a from the Spitzer Space Telescope are beautiful.

Orion shines brilliantly in winter. The name of one of his stars was well known as a character in the Harry Potter books, Bellatrix. Orion is a large constellation and the three stars in the belt are readily recognized. With binoculars you can see a really beautiful nebula in the sword below the belt.

This is an image of the Trapezium, a group of stars in the nebula in Orion's sword below his belt. The three stars you see to the right are not Orion's belt, it would be above this.











Every season brings new sights to see in the sky. Take a moment to look up and you'll be amazed at what you see! Even better, take a drive away from the city lights--you'll see even more!