October 18, 2011

Kicking Off A New Day With The Soccerball Cluster

From my observing journal: October  5 2011 
WOW!!  It was 6am and I went outside to browse around the winter sky. A beautiful 6:17am and  dawn was rising, orion nebula was a showpiece  and I could still see the orion nebula and surrounding stars. do you get the amazement of this? The sun was rising and all the stars were disappearing slowly and the nebula was still seen to the max. and the pleiades were all brilliant, just stunning. Loving my new binoculars!! 

Usually in my telescopes I can still see it big time but my binocs is  quite the star catcher. I was kicking off a new day with the soccer ball cluster. Do you know what the soccer ball cluster is??   Hint: It is a deep sky feature of Gemini, found by a major star found in the constellation.  This really cool, and a great idea, of an asterism was created by Phil Harrington. you can read about it and go out just before dawn and kick it around for yourself, your star maps awaits right here. I decided to make a video, was feeling really great after some pre-dawn winter sky observing. Click right  here to check out the asterism.

The photo above is exactly  the  pre-dawn sky I was observing  when I can still see the great nebula, pleiades and surrounding goodies. I really enjoyed the spectacular Sirius, just so spectacular that star is. Grab a scope or binoculars and go catch a glimpse of it. And Jupiter and it's moons were a  visual treat.




"I discovered the term the soccer ball cluster from Phil Harrington's  Binocular Universe" is what I was going to say when my batteries died. Then I decided to show you my skies I observe and my observing space.



I call my observatory Summer Moon Stargazing observatory after an amazing night I had in 2003. No worries, my telescopes were cleaned up and everything that was on it was put away. Actually my whole back porch got cleaned, built up some energy being excited  that the winter skies are around. The big dipper was out too!   I also caught some galaxies in my scope while dabbling among the dipper!

9 comments:

Orly said...

Once again funny commentary! OMG @ Sophy's raincoat too sweet!

Ben said...

Wow your fun! You have a great big sky! nice!

Vern said...

Wow I never heard of the soccer ball cluster !! COOL! She said phill hartman instead of phil harrington in the forst film lol.

NiteSkyGirl said...

Vern ..I know! woops! Made me laugh when I was checking the audio before posting, it was BEFORE coffee!!

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed that so much!! Thanks for sharing, WOOOOOW at your scopes!!

Jeff said...

lmao @ phil hartman LOLOLOL!!!!!

hilarious. your sound on your camera is great! I can hear the cars a few moments I think.

Brian said...

LOVE this!!!!!!!!!

Sidewalk Universe said...

WOW Phil nails it again! That is a great moniker for M35!

"I also caught some galaxies in my scope while dabbling among the dipper!" Yes there are a lot of galaxies to see around here.

Keep dabbling NSG!

Morgan F said...

Your photo is great, so pretty. Yup you can tell when someone has a dog, up and cheery at dawn. I enjoyed the dawn video and crickets, made me want to grab a coffee and sit there to watch it.

I am enjoying the soccer ball cluster as well. Second video, great eastern silhouette, loe the car lights coming down the road!