The Liverpool Astronomical Society

What is there to see this week?

Brendan Martin points out some of the interesting objects

that are on show this coming week.

Targets for this week 11/07/07
This week we are going to start with fairly easy Messier

catalogue items although we will start the week with a comet.

Comet Linear c/2006/vz13 in Draco.

RA 15h 47.6m
Dec +61deg 24’

mag 9.9

This comet should be an easy target for even small telescopes
It has a large coma (green colour…cyanogens gas) and bright

nucleus, it has a small faint tail. Positions are for midnight U.T on

each evening.

globular cluster
RA 17h 17m 22s

Dec +43deg 07’

mag 6.5

Approximately 26,000 light away and

thought to be about 12 billion years old.

Staying in Hercules, M13 (ngc6205) one of my favourite globular clusters.

RA 16h42m

Dec +36deg 27min.

mag 5.9.

This is another very old globular cluster about 27,500 light years away with an

estimated million plus stars inside it.

The beautiful Ring Nebula M57 (ngc6720) in Lyra.
RA 18h 55m 55s

Dec +33deg 2min 31sec

mag 9

See if you can resolve its central star. This can be quite challenging.

As the weekend wears on with no moon, try for M82 (ngc3034)

RA 9h 56min

Dec +70deg 43min

mag 8.4

It can be found in Ursa Major, see if you can spot the dark lanes that

seem to split this galaxy in two. There is a lot of activity in this

galaxy, thought to be as a result of a close encounter with nearby

M81 (ngc3031) mag 6.9. See if you can get both in the same field

of view, about a 0.5 deg apart.