Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

Muchachos, this will be a short one. Those of you who are Facebook friends of mine already know my wife, the dear Miss Dorothy, fell and broke a hip. I am grateful to those of you who asked after her and expressed your concern. After multiple hours of surgery, she is on the mend and has been transferred to a rehabilitation facility. I didn’t have much time to work on the blog, but I did want to keep to the Messier Road…

Taurus

M1, the Crab Nebula

Messier 1, Ol’ Crabby, as I called M1 as a boy, a supernova remnant, was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. Like more than a few M-objects, it was subsequently “lost,” only to be rediscovered by Charles Messier in 1758. Where does the "Crab" business come from? In the 1840s, Lord Rosse thought the nebula resembled a crab in his big, Dob-like reflector. Why he did, I do not know. It doesn’t look anything like a crustacean to my eyes, or even in Rosse’s original drawing. As most of you know, the Nebula is the remnant of the “guest star” of 1054 recorded by the Chinese. A famous pulsar hides within its folds.

So, how does it look? If you’re a wet-behind-the-ears 12-year-old observer with a 4-inch Newtonian, it doesn’t look like much from a suburban backyard. This was one of the first deep sky objects little Rod located, and suffice-to-say, he was not impressed. I likely passed over it a bunch of times, since, based on the observatory astrophotos in library books, I thought it would be mucho brighter. What it was was a dim oval of light in the field of my ½-inch Ramsden eyepiece. I was disappointed. M1’s visual magnitude figure, 8.8 made is sound reasonably easy. Alas, it’s 8.0’ across, fairly large, so that light is spread out.

That was novice amateur astronomer moi. How about expert observer John Mallas in The Messier Album? John begins by mentioning he had seen M1 as a dim patch in binoculars and in the 40mm finder of his 4-inch, a Unitron refractor. That’s quite a feat in my opinion, though Mallas was observing from far darker skies than I had as a boy, I suppose. He also says he was able to see some “extremely difficult” details in his Unitron, far more than little old me saw with my Palomar Junior. His drawing shows he was at least making out the basic shape of M1.

As with many nebulae, a light pollution reduction filter is key to seeing more detail. In my 12-inch, Old Betsy, an OIII filter finally allowed me to finally observe the filaments that crisscross M1. While the filter enhances these streamers of gas, it darkens the main body of the nebula. With no filter, in Old Betsy and my current “big” scope, Zelda, a 10-inch, the gas filaments disappear, but the nebula's zed or lightning bolt shape becomes clear. The other night with the 6-inch Dob (who has stubbornly not yet told me her name), we were back to the “dim oval” stage.

Suzie, the 50mm ZWO S50 smartscope, had zero trouble with Old Crabby. 45-minutes of exposure in equatorial mode revealed many of the details of the astrophotos in my 1960s astronomy books. Quite amazing, if you ask me. The color is the only thing that has me scratching my head. I’d expected a little green from OIII emission, but that’s not what Suzie’s dual-band filter delivered. I will not quibble with Suze; she did a terrific job for a wee little girl.

M45

The seven sisters, the Pleiades, were covered in my blog article on the 2025 Deep South Star Gaze here.

Orion

M42 and M43

The Great Nebula in Orion is the deep sky object to end all deep sky objects—in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway. I’ve talked about my first looks at M42 as a kid before, notably here, so there is no reason to further gild that lily. It is terrific in any scope or even in smallish binoculars. If M1 tore me down, M42 built me back up and inspired a lifetime of deep sky observing.

As for the “Orion” (as we kid astronomers called it) backstory, that’s a little puzzling. There is no clear record of it from antiquity. Which is strange, since even from modern light-polluted cities it is visible naked eye as a distinctly fuzzy star in Orion’s sword. Has it changed? Become brighter? No one knows. The first reliable record of it comes from Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, who had a look at it on a chilly French evening, November 26, 1610. As for specs, it is a mindblower with a visual magnitude of 4.0. Despite its size of 40.0’ x 20.0’, that high magnitude value keeps it bright, and it is easy in any optical instrument—or with none at all. The whole field, which includes the comma-shaped companion nebula, M43, is festooned with dust and gas.

I simply never tire of Messier 42. After 60 years of admiring it, I always find something new. After I got old Betsy and acquired some LPR filters in the early 1990s, I saw more than ever. Notably, intricate detail in M43 and the space between it and the main nebula. Though Old Betsy is long gone, I find the view in the 10-inch nearly equal to what I saw in the 12-inch. And I see more today. My eyes aren’t as good, no, but I can observe M42 on any clear night in a suburban sky far superior to the city one I had to deal with in Bet’s heyday.

John Mallas does a fine job of summing up the glory of M42, “Here is one of the most remarkable areas in the heavens. So many details are visible in even a small telescope that it is difficult to make a realistic drawing.” As is often the case, John’s drawing of the Great Nebula is more of impressionistic than realistic. Over the years, some have criticized his style, but a long time ago I discovered that if you view the drawings in the book under a red light, they look remarkably like what you see in the eyepiece of a small telescope. The Kreimer image wouldn't win any prizes today, but back in the long-ago it was a masterpiece, a revelation.

The very first object I imaged with Suzie two years ago was M42. That was the place to start, a nice bright object while I was learning to use the smartscope. My results firmly clued me in that there damn sure was something to this smartscope business.

M78

The other Messier in Orion is the (seemingly) small reflection nebula M78. It’s yet another M not discovered by the Man himself, but by his eagle-eyed friend Pierre Mechain, who stumbled across a patch of nebulosity in 1780. He told Messier about it, and Chuck immediately added it to his catalog as another comet imposter. It is similar in size and brightness to M1, being at magnitude 8.0 and 8.0’ across, but to me, anyway, it seems easier to see in a small instrument.

M78 is just one small part of an area littered with reflection and emission nebulae. It is merely the brightest member of an interconnected group that includes NGC 2064, NGC 2067, and NGC 2071. All these objects are part of the so-called “Orion B” molecular cloud complex, which is about 1,350 light-years from the third stone from the Sun.

I must have observed M78 as a boy; the brightest portion of the complex, NGC 2068, is not difficult in a small telescope. I was, no doubt, not overly impressed, though. In a 4-inch from the suburbs, M78 is nothing more than a slightly oval nebula surrounding a pair of stars. When did I begin to see more here? Not till quite a while later when I had darker skies and bigger telescopes. And nebula filters. “Nebula filters?! This is a reflection nebula, not an emission nebula, Unk! A filter won’t help.” Not quite, Skeeter. There is emission nebulosity here, too, and when I glommed onto that fact, I began to see even more in the area.

John Mallas observation of M78 lies somewhere between what I saw as a kid and what I can see of the nebula now. He describes it as comet shaped, which had me scratching my head till I realized he was seeing the faint finger of nebulosity that extends to the east, quite an accomplishment with a 4-inch achromat. 

By the time I got around to turning the S50 on M78, I was aware how powerful the little telescope is, so I shouldn’t have been surprised at what she brought back—but I was. Swathes of gas and dust crowd the frame.

And that is going to be a wrap for this one, muchachos. I am off to visit the lovely Miss Dorothy. I missed posting the January AstroBlog, barely, the first time the blog has missed a month in a long time. I intend to make it up with a “bumper” February article, an extra one, if the sky and events cooperate. Excelsior!