Siva Rathri with Sivan

           Astronomy with Binoculars              Clusters of the Celestial Sphere   Oh...what a Night show !

Early morning sunrise.

It was a different night. Cold much reduced, but dwe was condensing after mid night. The early evening till midnight was clear without any clouds. But haze in the atmosphere, made me rate it as 05 in the Bortle Scale. 

As with last fortnight, I saw, about to culminate Orion and Auriga. I lay in the reclining chair and used my 10x50 Binoculars to view Andromeda galaxy, in the western sector. It was not a difficult task. 

I could easily pick out M36 the compact bright of the three, just inside the eastern side of the pentagon. M37 a bit bigger and fainter to the outer side and M38 much bigger and fainter just west of M36, but much nearer than 37 is to 36. They formed a small non-equal triangle with M36 at the apex, in my 6 degree field of view. Sweeping down south and east I was able to see M35, at the tip of Gemini. A conspicuous loose cluster, looking like M38 but much brighter and bigger. 

Moving to Sirius and sweeping down south i could easily see M41. 

There were a couple of satellites for early evening, late evening and early morning totalling 10 in all. A couple of satellites crossed my binocular field criss-crossing in two directions, They looked brighter, faster, and nearer. There were a few meteors and high flying birds mimicking satellites.

Constellations Virgo, Lupus, Draco, Ursa minor, Herculus, Corona Borealis, Coma Berenices, Corvus, Ophiuchus, were traced full.

M4 was spotted near Antaras and M33 in Herculus.

Orion the Hunter (Greek mythology) - 

Lord Siva Nataraja  (Hindu mythology).

Modern statue gifted by India at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Dance of Shiva, this gigantic cosmic dance of vibrating molecules and atoms in the soil, air, rocks, water, and in our own bodies - this cosmic dance of energy, the rhythm of it is felt and the sound heard under the starry sky ! 

Colours & Intensity of some Bright Stars

Variable star BU Tauri, in Pleiades observed. I counted 11 stars in the group, with Binoculars. 

With the aid of Stellarium, we could locate Planet Mercury, currently in the constellation of Capricornus. It appeard as a bright steady untwinkling star with a golden hue. It was visible for sometime even when I missed the moon for a while. 

Its given Mag is - 0.29 with RA 20h 48m 50s & Dec -19° 22' 23”. Around 6 AM, planet Mercury appeared above to the north-west of a 2% lit waning cresent moon, being at the 11-o-clock position and the moon at 4-o-clock position in the same binocular field. Moon was stunning to look at nearar to the horizon in the moving partly dark cloud covered eastern horizon. For a few moments it was also seen with the naked eyes, along with the moon. 

Cropped screenshot of moon app showing a reduced to 1% cresent moon, on the same day, at 1.39 PM, Sun, 19th Feb, 2023.

Astrophotographers:-
Dr Suresh. (the equipment belongs to him). 

Visual Observers:-
Dr V Anand, Mr Renganathan, Dr Muralidharan - 10x50 Binoculars on easy chair, Collins gem guide, red filter torch light. Star hopping method. 

Telescopes used:
Dr Sureshmohan, Sudharsan, Syed: Takhashi FSQ-106EDx4 Quadruplet Refractor, on an astrophysics USA made mach 1 GTO.

Food & Hospitality: Dr Suresh, Mr Renganathan.

Dogs: local farm dog Brucelee. 🐕 

Photographs - choosen from the internet.