Binocular Stargazing

With binoculars in hand, it's time to begin your voyage to the stars. You will find it a much more comfortable voyage from a seated position, so set up your favorite chaise lounge before departure. Start out by slowly scanning back and forth among the stars. You will be amazed at just how many more stars there are in the sky! While the naked eye can see perhaps 3,000 stars on a clear, dark night, 35-mm binoculars will show an estimated 50,000!

Each season holds special stargazing surprises.

Let's begin with the spring.

First, locate the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the late-winter constellation of Gemini the Twins, and the bright star Regulus in Leo the Lion. Hold the binoculars up to your eyes and scan about halfway between the stars, into the constellation of Cancer the Crab. At the heart of the Crab is a magnificent open star cluster nicknamed the Beehive. Astronomers catalog it as M44, the 44th entry in Charles Messier's 18th-century catalog of star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. More than 200 stars belong to this celestial swarm, with most bright enough to be seen in 7x binoculars. Most will appear white or blue-white.

The summer sky holds so many magnificent wonders that trying to come up with the best is very difficult, but my favorite region is located to the south, in the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer. The brightest stars within Sagittarius form a pattern more reminiscent of a teapot than an archer. Find the spout of the teapot, then scan with binoculars a little to the northeast. There, you will discover a number of star clouds and nebulae, including M8, nicknamed the Lagoon Nebula, a huge collection of ionized hydrogen where stars are being formed.

The autumn sky also has many binocular targets, but the most famous by far is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Galaxies lie beyond the edge of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and are separate systems of billions of individual stars. To find the Andromeda Galaxy, first locate the Great Square of Pegasus, then the stars that form the constellation of Andromeda the princess to its northeast. The Andromeda Galaxy is located to the northwest of the middle of three stars that form part of the princess' body. Look for a fuzzy, oval smudge of grayish light. It may not look like much at first, but consider that when we see the Andromeda Galaxy, our gaze is traveling across more than 2 million light years. Two smaller satellite galaxies, M32 and M110, lie nearby.

Finally, the winter proves to be a star-spangled playground for binocular stargazers. Dominating the scene is the constellation of Orion the Hunter. Dangling off of his three-starred belt is Orion's sword, a grouping of three fainter, north-south stars. Binoculars show that the center star in the sword is actually a cloud of interstellar gas called M42, the Orion Nebula. Like summertime's Lagoon Nebula, the Orion Nebula may be thought of as a star factory, with many hundreds of formed suns buried deep within. The Orion Nebula lies about 1,500 light years from us.