2025 January 2
Deep Sky Update – December 2024
I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a good New Year. Maybe Santa brought an astro-goodie to keep you entertained over the next few months!
December has been a poor observing month for me – with barely a few patches of clear sky at night all month. And not to mention the high winds. And with the Sun being a bit quiet through the month there was not even much of an aurora to see, except of course for last night (January 01-02) which kicked off the New Year with a super display (albeit rather obscured by clouds for me). And I think many observers across the country found December rather poor.
The February 2025 issue of Sky & Telescope dropped into my email-box on Christmas eve, which turns out to be the 1000th issue of the magazine which has been going since November 1941. Of course it has gone through a lot of changes since those early days, and whilst it went through a rocky period for a while I think it is now back to being on good form. And I still enjoy thumbing through back issues – fascinating to see how much has changed, and how much hasn’t!
I was sad to hear of the passing of Christopher Taylor in December – he was a frequent attendee at our section meetings and a keen double star observer, amongst other interests. You can read his Deep Sky Note about Albireo
And on the topic of Deep Sky Notes – it has been a while since we have had any new DSN’s, so if you’d like to write something please send to me. Just the thing for a wet and windy night when there is no chance to observe.
Section Meeting – March 22 2025
As I mentioned in the last update bookings are now open for the Section Meeting in Goostrey, Cheshire on March 22nd. If you are a BAA member you can use the discount code to gain the discounted ticket price. Go to the event page on the BAA website and follow the links to make your booking.
Object of Interest for December
NGC 1931 was the target for December, but I guess the poor weather stopped many from observing. So big thanks go to Iain Cartwright, Ivan Walton, Manolo Rodriguez, and Fred Stevenson for their images. Manolo managed to pick out a lot of detail on his image which featured as BAA Picture of the Week too.
January Object Of Interest
Our favourite winter constellation, Orion, has a wealth of bright and dark nebulae, planetary nebulae, and clusters, but is not well known for its galaxies. In fact there are 30 galaxies in the NGC and IC catalogues. This month’s target is just a stone’s throw away (1.5 degrees west) from M42 – the galaxy NGC 1924. A real challenge for small telescopes, but should be visible for a 200mm aperture scope. And as a bonus target for anyone wanting a bigger challenge, seek out the trio of galaxies IC 412 ND 413, which are a more interesting interacting pair.
Deep Sky POTM
This month’s Deep Sky Picture of the Month is of IC 417 by Iain Certwright. A super image of this often overlooked target.
And finally
Welcome to 2025 – let’s hope we get some better observing weather this year than 2024 which I think for most has been rather mediocre.
Clear, dark skies
Callum
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