APOD 25: STAR FACTORY MESSIER 17

2014 May 27

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. This field of view covers nearly 100 light years. The sharp, composite, color image follows faint details of the region's gas and dust clouds against the backdrop of the central Milky Way stars. Stellar winds and energetic light from hot, massive stars formed from M17's stock of cosmic gas and dust have slowly carved away at the remaining interstellar material, producing a cavernous and misshaped appearance.

APOD 24: OMEGA CENTAURI

2014 May 29

Omega Centauri, a globular cluster also known as NGC 5139, is approximately 15,000 light years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than our Sun; the largest and brightest of 200 or so known globular clusters that roam the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy. Omega Centauri exhibits the presence of different stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances, leading to the evidence that it may actually be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with the Milky Way.

Q4 Observations #3

Date: May 29, 2014

Time: 7:30-9:00 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions: new moon, progressing towards waxing crescent. relatively clear

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter & Mars & Saturn

Bright Stars noted: Spica, Regulus, Gamma Leonis, Cor Caroli, Arcturus, Alphard, Archenar, Thuban

Constellations noted: Libra, Virgo, Serpens, Ursa Major, Hercules, Cancer, Camelopardis, Lynx, Auriga, Bootes, Hydra, Gemini, Leo, Draco, Puppis

Binary Star: none known from constellations in night sky

Deep Sky Objects: Big Dipper in Ursa Major
M13 in Hercules
M104 in Virgo
M44 in Cancer
Hydra's Head in Hydra

Other:  Jupiter in Gemini
Mars in Virgo
Saturn in Libra

Q4 Observations #2

Date: May 27, 2014

Time: 7:30-8:30 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions: waning crescent. rained earlier in the evening, but fairly clear.

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter & Mars

Bright Stars noted: Spica, Regulus, Gamma Leonis, Cor Caroli, Arcturus, Alphard, Archenar, Thuban

Constellations noted: Virgo, Ursa Major, Canes Venatici, Cancer, Camelopardis, Auriga, Bootes, Hydra, Gemini, Leo, Draco, Corvus

Binary Star: none known from constellations in night sky

Deep Sky Objects: Big Dipper in Ursa Major
M104 in Virgo
M44 in Cancer
Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
Hydra's Head in Hydra

Other:  Jupiter in Gemini
Mars in Virgo

Karl Jansky Biography

     Karl Guthe Jansky was born in the Territory of Oklahoma on October 22, 1905. His father, Cyril M. Jansky, was born in Wisconsin of Czech immigrants and worked as Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Jansky’s brother, Cyril Jansky Jr. helped build some of the earliest radio transmitters in the country, including 9XM in Wisconsin. Karl Jansky attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in physics in 1927. A year later he joined the Belle Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. Bell Labs assigned Jansky the job of investigating sources of static that might interfere with radio voice transmittions. At Bell Labs, Jansky built an antenna designed to receive radio waves at a frequency of 20.5 MHz. As it was mounted on a any-direction turntable, the antennae was nick named “Jansky’s merry-go-round”. After recording signals from all different directions for several months, Jansky categorized them into three types of static: nearby thunderstorms, distant thunderstorms, and unknown origin. After a year of investigating the source of the third type of static, Jansky initially surmised that he was detecting radiation from the Sun. The signal repeated on a cycle relative to the Earth’s sidereal day, instead of the 24-hour solar day. Jansky concluded that the radiation was coming from the Milky Way and was the strongest in the direction of the center of the galaxy. His discovery was publicized greatly, appearing in the New York Times in 1933. Karl Guthe Jansky was the first to discover radio waves from the Milky Way and is considered one of the founding fathers of radio astronomy. In honor of Jansky, the unit used by radio astronomers for the strength of radio sources is called the jansky. Another crater on the Moon is also named after Jansky. The NRAO postdoctoral fellowship program is named after Janksy, in addition to the annual Jansky Prize awarded by the organization. A full-scale replica of Jansky’s original rotating telescope is located on the grounds of the NRAO site in Green Bank, West Virginia. Jansky noise is also named after Jansky, which refers to high frequency static disturbances of cosmic origins. Karl Jansky passed away on Valentines day in 1950 due to kidney failure.

Bibliography

     Ghigo, F. "Karl Jansky." Karl Jansky. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 16 May 2008. Web. 24 May 2014. <http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/hist_jansky.shtml>. 

     Redpath, Martina. "Karl Jansky: The Father of Radio Astronomy." Astronotes. Armagh Planetarium, 2010. Web. 24 May 2014. <http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/karl-jansky-the-father-of-radio-astronomy.html>.

     "Karl Jansky." NNDB. Soylent Communications, 2014. Web. 24 May 2014. <http://www.nndb.com/people/055/000204440/>.

Q4 Observations #1

Date: May 22, 2014

Time: 8:00-9:00 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions: last quarter moon, mostly clear skies

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter & Mars

Bright Stars noted: Regulus, Gamma Leonis, Cor Caroli, Arcturus, Alphard

Constellations noted: Ursa Major, Leo, Canes Venatici, Cancer, Monoceros, Puppis, Corona Borealis, Bootes, Hydra, Gemini

Binary Star: none known from constellations

Deep Sky Objects: Big Dipper in Ursa Major
M44 in Cancer
Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
Hydra's Head in Hydra

APOD 23: ORANGE SUN SPARKING

2014 May 6

The Sun has been observed displaying numerous tumultous regions including the active sunspot regions AR 2036 (near the top) and AR 2038 (near the center). Four years ago, the Sun was emerging from an unusually quiet Solar Minimum, lasting many years. The gradual brightening of the Sun's edges is caused by increased absorption of realtively cool gas, called limb darkening. Just over the Sun's edges, several filamentary prominences protrude, while prominences of the Sun's face are seen as light streaks. The magnetically tangled active regions containing relatively cool sunspots are seen as white dots. Currently at the Solar Maximum (the most active phase in the 11-year magnetic cycle), the Sun's twisted magnetic field is creating numerous solar "sparks", including flares, eruptive solar prominences, and coronal mass ejections which emit clouds of particles that may impact the Earth and cause auroras.

APOD 22: HUBBLE'S JUPITER

2014 May 17

Jupiter is the Solar System's largest planet, with a mass 320 times larger than that of the Earth. In between Jupiter's bands, the Great Red Spot could easily swallow the Earth, yet Hubble observations have recently discovered the spot is diminishing - most recent records measure the GRS at 10,250 miles across, in comparison to Voyager I's measurements of 14,500 miles in 1979. Current indications are that the rate of shrinking is gradually increasing for the Great Red Spot.

APOD 21: A HALO FOR NGC 6164

2014 May 22

The emission nebula of NGC 6164 was created by a rare, hot, luminous O-type star, about 40 times as massive as the Sun. As the star is about 4 million years old, in another 3-4 million years the massive star will end its life in a supernova explosion. The nebula itself has bipolar symmetry , making it similar in appearance to planetary nebula - the gaseous shrouds surrounding the dying sun-like stars. Similar to planetary nebulae, NGC 6164 is found to have an extensive, faint halo, revealed in the deep telescopic image. This halo is most likely a result of an earlier active phase in the O star. The landscape is composite of extensive narrow-band image data, highlighting glowing atomic hydrogen in red and blue hues.

APOD 20: INSIDE THE ORION NEBULA

8 April 2014

The Great Nebula in Orion is probably one of the best known astronomical nebulas. Glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. The colors taken in by the Hubble Space Telescope were wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. 

APOD 19:ALONG THE WESTERN VEIL

2014 April 4

Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, draped in Earth's sky towards constellation Cygnus, make up the western part of the Veil Nebula. It is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born on the death explosion of a massive star. Interstellar shock waves plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. The glowing filaments are really more like long ripples in the sheet, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) gas. 

APOD 18: THE ANTENNAE GALAXIES IN COLLISION

16 March 2014

When two galaxies collide, the stars that compose them usually do not. Galaxies are mostly entirely empty space, and stars only take up minute space. During the slow, hundred million year collision, one galaxy can still rip each other apart gravitationally - dust and gas DO collide. Dark dust pillars mark massive molecular clouds being compressed during galactic encounter, causing rapid birth of millions of stars - some bound in the same massive star cluster. 

APOD 17: ORION NEBULA

25 March 2014

The Orion field - approximately 1600 light years away - is immersed in intricate light patterns of dust arrangement. Dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by strong outer wind of particles. Trapezium and other forming star clusters are present. Filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear gray in the above image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in brown and blue. Orion's dust will be destroyed in the next few million years by the stars being formed now, or dispersed in the Galaxy. 

Q3 Observations #4

Date: March 23, 2014

Time: 8:00-9:00 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions: cloudy, can still see most stars. Moon at 3rd Quarter

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter & Mars

Bright Stars noted:Aldebaren, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, Algol, Castor, Pollux

Constellations noted: Taurus, Ursa Major, Orion, Leo, Canes Venatici, Cancer, Canis Major, Puppis, Perseus, Gemini, Virgo

Binary Star: Algol (eclipsing binary), Rigel, Sirius B

Deep Sky Objects: Hyades & Pleiades (The Seven Sisters) in Taurus
Big Dipper in Ursa Major
M42, Horsehead Nebula, Orion's Belt in Orion
Cor Caroli in Canes Venatici
Crab Nebula in Cancer

Other: Jupiter in the constellation Gemini, Mars in Virgo

Q3 Observations #3

Date: March 21, 2014

Time: 8:30-9:30 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions:somewhat cloudy, clear enough to observe. Moon at Waning Gibbous

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter

Bright Stars noted:Procyon, Aldebaren, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, Archenar, Capella, Algol

Constellations noted: Taurus, Orion, Leo, Canis Major & Minor, Perseus, Auriga, Hydra, Puppis, Cassiopeia, Eridanus

Binary Star: Algol (eclipsing binary), Betelgeuse (red supergiant), Sirius B

Deep Sky Objects: Double Cluster in Perseus
Horsehead Nebula in Orion
Taurus' Hyades & Pleiades, the Seven Sisters
Hydra's Head
Rosette Nebula in Monoceros

Other: Jupiter moving away from the constellation Orion

Q3 Observations #2

Date: March 18, 2014

Time: 8:00-9:00 PM 

Place: Sarasota, FL (Southgate)

Sky Conditions: few, large clouds. full Moon

Instruments Used: no binoculars or telescopes. 

Planets: Jupiter

Bright Stars noted:Gamma Andromeda, Aldebaren, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, Archenar (hard to see entire constellation, Eridanus), Capella, Algol

Constellations noted: Taurus, Andromeda, Orion, Leo, Cancer, Canis Major, Monoceros, Perseus, Auriga

Binary Star: Algol (eclipsing binary), Betelgeuse (red supergiant)

Deep Sky Objects: M41
M42 & the Horsehead Nebula in Orion
Perseus's Double Cluster
Taurus' Hyades & Pleiades, the Seven Sisters

Other: Jupiter near the constellation Orion

APOD 16: MESSIER 63 - THE SUNFLOWER GALAXY

2014 March 13

Messier 63 is about 25 million light years away in the northern sky near constellation Canes Venatici. NGC5055, the majestic island universe is 100k light years across, about the same size as our Milky Way. Messier 63, aka Sunflower Galaxy, has a bright yellow core, with sweeping blue spiral arms, streaked with with cosmic dust lanes and dotted with pink star forming regions. M63 has faint, extended features, due to the gravitational interactions with nearby galaxies. M63 shines across the EM spectrum and is thought to have undergone bursts of intense star formation.

Q3 Observations #1

Date: March 1st, 2014

Time: 7:00-9:00 PM (with Percival & Dacey, ~ 4 hours credit)

Place: Pine View Service Road

Sky Conditions: Clear skies. Moon not present,  new moon.

Instruments Used: binoculars (10x50),12 inch telescope, 8 inch telescope, 10 inch telescope

Planets: Jupiter & moons, viewed in 12 in. telescope

Bright Stars noted:Betelgeuse, Rigel, Polaris, Castor, Pollox, Aldebaren, Sirius, Algol, Capella, Procyon

Constellations noted: Gemini, Taurus, Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Canis Major, Perseus, Auriga, Eridanus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia

Binary Star: Castor (visual binary), Algol (eclipsing binary), Betelgeuse (red supergiant)

Deep Sky Objects: M41, viewed in 10 in. telescope
M42 & the Horsehead Nebula in Orion
Perseus's Double Cluster
Taurus' Hyades & Pleiades, the Seven Sisters

Other: Jupiter located in the constellation Gemini.

APOD 15: NGC 1333 STARDUST

6 March 2014

NGC 1333 can be seen as a reflection nebula in visible light, only 1,000 light-years away from the constellation Perseus, lying at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This image spans about two full moons, showing detail of the dusty region along with hints of bluish reflected starlight, contrasted red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas originating from recently formed stars. NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old. 

Jacobus Kapteyn Biography

Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn was born in Barneveld, Netherlands on January 19, 1851. He attended the University of Utretcht to study mathematics and physics in 1868. After finishing his thesis, he worked in the Leiden Observatory for three years, before becoming the first Professor of Astronomy and Theoretical Mechanics at the University of Groningen. He volunteered to measure photographic plates taken by David Gill , who was constructing a photographic survey of the southern hemisphere stars at the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. The collaboration publication, Cape Photographic Durchmusterung, catalogued 454, 875 stars - including values for density, functions of distance, brightness, and spectral class. He devised a sampling system in which the thourough counting of stars in small, selected areas gave indication to the Milky Way's structure. During his observations, he discovered the phenomenon known as stellar streaming; stating that peculiar motions of stars are not randomized, but rather grouped around two opposite, preffered directions in space. Later consideration revealed Kapteyn's data had been the first evidence of rotation in our galaxy, leading to the final conclusion of galactic rotation. In 1906, he launched a major study of the Galaxy's distribution of stars, involving the measurement of apparent magnitude, spectral type, radial velocity, and proper motion of stars in 206 zones - this being the first coordinated statistical analysis in astronomy.

In 1897, his collaboration brought the discovery of Kapteyn's Star - having the highest proper motion of any star until the discovery of Barnard's Star in 1916. He retired from Leiden Observatory in 1921 at the age of seventy. His life work, First Attempt at Theory of the Arrangement and Motion of the Sidereal System, was published in 1922. He discovered a lens-shaped island universe, today known as the Kapteyn Universe. Jacobus Kapteyn has a moon crater, a star, and a telescope named after him for his accomplishments. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1902, the James Craig Watson Medal in 1913, and a Bruce Medal in 1913.

APOD 14: THE PLEIADES

25 February 2014

The Pleiades star is slowly destroying gas and dust in a partial passing cloud. The Pleiades is the brighest open star cluster and can be seen from nearly any location in the northern hemisphere by the naked eye. The passing cloud appears to be affiliated with Gould's Belt, an unusal ring of a young star formation surrounding the Sun. The star's pressure repels dust in the surrounding blue reflection nebula, while smaller dust particles are being repelled more strongly. 

APOD 13: CASSINI SPACECRAFT CROSSES SATURN'S RING PLANE

February 23, 2014
Saturn's rings are confined to a plane many times thinner than even a razor blade. When the Earth crosses the ring plane, the edge-on rings seem to disappear. The spacecraft Cassini orbiting Saturn now also crosses Saturn's ring plane. The ring plane appears blue, as bands and clouds in the upper atmosphere appear golden. The bumps in the ring are Saturn's moons.  

Jacobus Kapteyn (Sources)

1. "Jacobus C. Kapteyn." Jacobus C. Kapteyn. Soylent Communications, 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. <http://www.nndb.com/people/657/000170147/>

2. "Jacobus C. Kapteyn." The Bruce Medalists: Jacobus C. Kapteyn. The Bruce Medalists, 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. <http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/BruceMedalists/Kapteyn/>

APOD 12: SPITZER'S ORION

2014 January 15

This is Orion's Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This false color image spans 40 light-years, constructed using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The brighest portion of the nebula is centered on Orion's young, massive, hot stars known as the Trapezium Cluster. 

Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre

            Delambre, the son of a draper, was born the eldest son in his family. Due to contracting smallpox at the age of 15 months, he lost all his eyelashes and nearly lost all of his eyesight. He attended Jesuit College in Amiens, where he studied English and German. He had intents of becoming a parish priest, but one of his teachers encouraged him to continue his education in Paris. After failing to gain a scholarship to the College du Plessis in Paris, he had to teach himself mathematics, Jean-Claude Geoffroy d’Assy, and lived with him – accepting a small pension and living cheaply. His interests moved from Greek language and literature to Greek science. He discovered modern astronomy reading Lalande’s Traité d’astronomie, Delambre began attending Lalande’s lectures. Lalande was impressed by his knowledge and attentiveness, and asked Delambre to assist him with astronomical observations for his newest edition of his Traité d’astronomie. In 1786, Delambre recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun, where he realized that the existing transit tables were inaccurate, and led him to devote much effort to producing new, accurate tables. Delambre decided to make observations of the orbit of Uranus in order to verify Laplace’s theoretical results. In 1792, Delambre, with his own observatory, published Tables du Soleil, de Jupiter, de Saturne, d’Uranus et des satellites de Jupiter. In that same year, he was awarded the Grand Prix of Académie des Sciences, for the second time. In 1790, in order to establish a universally accepted foundation for the definition of measures, the National Constituent Assembly asked the French Academy of Sciences to introduce a new unit of measurement. The academics decided on the metre, defined as 1 / 10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the equator, and prepared to organize an expedition to measure the length of the meridian arc between Dunkirk and Barcelona. Cassini was chosen to head the northern expedition but, as a royalist, he refused to serve under the revolutionary government after the arrest of King Louis XVI on his Flight to Varennes. On 15 February 1792, Delambre was elected unanimously a member of the French Academy of Sciences and in May 1792, after Cassini's final refusal, was placed in charge of the northern expedition, measuring the meridian from Dunkirk to Rodez. Pierre Méchain headed the southern expedition, measuring from Barcelona to Rodez. The measurements finished 1798, and were presented to an international conference of savants in Paris the following year. Delambre held other achievements during his lifetime. In 1795, he was admitted to the Bureau des Longitudes, becoming President in 1800. In 1801, First Counsul Napoleon Bonaparte became president of the of the Académie des Sciences, and appointed Delambre as Permanent Secretary for the Mathematical Sciences. In 1809, Napoleon requested the Académie des Sciences award a prize to Delambre for the best scientific publication of the decade, concerning his work on the meridian. In the latter part of his career/life, Delambre focused on the history of mathematics and astronomy, publishing his two volumes of Historie de l’astronomie for ancient and modern astronomy. He died in 1822, and he has a large Moon crater named after him.

Bibliography

Tikkanen, Amy. "Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre (French Astronomer)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 09 Sept. 2009. Web. 08 Jan. 2014. 
<http://www.britannica.com/topic/156305/history>"
Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre." Delambre Biography. School of Mathematics and Statistics, Apr. 2003. Web. 08 Jan. 2014. <http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Delambre.html>

Miller, Frederic P. Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre. N.p.: VDM, 2010. Print.

Q2 Observations #5

Date: January 7, 2014

Time: 7:00 - 8:30 pm

Location: Backyard (North Sarasota, FL)

Sky Conditions: Partly cloudy. Moon: waxing crescent.

Instruments Used: naked eye observations, no binoculars/telescopes

Planets: Jupiter, found in Gemini

Bright Stars noted: Deneb, Alberio, Gamma Andromeda, Betelgeuse, Rigel

, 

Constellations noted: Gemini, Taurus, Andromeda, Cygnus, Orion, Monoceros

Binary Star: Alberio: one star bright blue, the other (lower to right) yellow. Theta Taurus easily seen, and Beta Orionis (Rigel), two blue-white stars.

Deep Sky Objects: M31, "The Andromeda Galaxy", located in Andromeda: most identifiable spiral 

galaxy

"The Hyades": open, located in Taurus: "V" shaped, nine main stars

M42, "The Orion Nebula", celestial nursery, located in Orion: four star system known as "The Trapezium"

"The Cone Nebula", dark cone cluster, located in Orion

APOD 11: Open Star Cluster in Scorpius

2014 January 7

As one of the most prominent open clusters in the sky, M7 is dominated by blue stars, and can be seen by the naked eye in the dark sky as the tail of the Scorpion constellation. A dark dust cloud and millions of unrelated stars are towards the Galactic center are visible. M7 contains 100 stars, is 200 million years old,  spans 25 light years, and lies 1,000 light years away. M7 was observed by the ancients, in the time of Ptolemy, around 130 AD. 

Q2 Observations #4

Date: December 17, 2013

Time: 8:30 - 10 pm

Location: Backyard (North Sarasota, FL)

Sky Conditions: Mostly clear, with some faint & wispy clouds. Moon: full.

Instruments Used: naked eye observations, no binoculars/telescopes

Planets: Venus

Bright Stars noted: Deneb, Alberio, Gamma Andromeda, Betelgeuse, Rigel

, 

Constellations noted: Taurus, Andromeda, Cygnus, Orion, Fornax

Binary Star: Alberio: one star bright blue, the other (lower to right) yellow. Gamma Andromeda: color difference - blue and golden. Theta Taurus easily seen, still cannot notice color difference, if any. Beta Orionis (Rigel), two blue-white stars.

Deep Sky Objects: M45, The Pleiades: open, located in Taurus; seven brightest stars go under the name "The Seven Sisters"

M31, "The Andromeda Galaxy", located in Andromeda: most identifiable spiral 

galaxy

"The Hyades": open, located in Taurus: "V" shaped, nine main stars

M42, "The Orion Nebula", celestial nursery, located in Orion: four star system known as "The Trapezium"

Q2 Observations #3

Date: December 7, 2013

Time: 8 - 9 pm

Location: Backyard (North Sarasota, FL)

Sky Conditions: Somewhat clear, with few larger clouds. Moon: waxing crescent.

Instruments Used: naked eye observations, no binoculars/telescopes

Planets: Venus

Bright Stars noted: Deneb, Alberio, Gamma Andromeda, Aldebaran

Constellations noted: Taurus, Andromeda, Cygnus

Binary Star: Alberio: one star bright blue, the other (lower to right) yellow. Gamma Andromeda: color difference - blue and golden. Theta Taurus visible, no clear color difference. 

Deep Sky Objects: M45, The Pleiades: open, located in Taurus; seven brightest stars go under the name "The Seven Sisters"

M31, "The Andromeda Galaxy", located in Andromeda: most identifiable spiral galaxy

Cygnus' "North American Nebula", a faint green emission nebula, can be seen tonight