Observing – Page 5 – Astronomy Now

Get a buzz from the Beehive

9 February 2024 Mark Armstrong

Messier 44 in Cancer is a marvellous open cluster that’s a great sight through a modest pair of binoculars.

Ignite Auriga’s Flaming Star Nebula

4 December 2023 Steve Kelly

IC 405, the colourful Flaming Star Nebula, is a prime target in the northern sky.

Go to the edge with NGC 891

26 November 2023 Mark Armstrong

NGC 891 in Andromeda is one of the finest edge-on spiral galaxies in the northern heavens.

Look out for the Leonids!

16 November 2023 Mark Armstrong

The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks on the morning of 18 November

Observing

Uranus at its best for the year

13 November 2023 Mark Armstrong

Remote and endlessly fascinating, Uranus is now peaking in accessibility, offering the best observing chances this year.

Messier 74’s face-on beauty in Pisces

16 October 2023 Mark Armstrong

Messier 74 (NGC 628) is a spiral galaxy out of the top-drawer. This far-flung island universe yields awe-inspiring images, its sweeping spiral arms being presented in the ‘grand-design’ manner.

The mighty Andromeda Galaxy and its retinue

9 October 2023 Mark Armstrong

Messier 31, the Great Galaxy in Andromeda, is the closest major galaxy to our Solar System and the dominant galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies, larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Fomalhaut (alpha [α] PsA), the principal star of Piscis Austrinus, the ‘Southern Fish’, and the eighteenth-brightest star in the heavens, is the most southerly first-magnitude star visible right across the UK.

Messier 2: a fine globular cluster in Aquarius

25 September 2023 Mark Armstrong

Messier 2 is probably the best globular cluster of the late-summer/early autumn sky, being a big and bright telescopic target that can also be swept up through 10 x 50 binoculars.

NGC 488: Pisces’ hidden galaxy that’s a work of art

18 September 2023 Mark Armstrong

NGC 488 in Pisces is an oval-shaped face-on spiral galaxy that’s a bit of a hidden gem.