A Colorful Quartet in Lepus
The multiple star HJ 3780 is a colorful and pleasing binocular object in the somewhat neglected constellation of Lepus, crouching just south of Orion. The blazing star in the Simbad image above is Arneb, a 2nd magnitude class F0 1b supergiant, the brightest star in...
How to Find Hind’s Crimson Star
This post is for a special friend who recently had trouble locating Hind's Crimson Star, aka R Leporis. R Leporis is a famously red carbon star of spectral class C7,4e in the constellation Lepus, the hare. It's a Mira-type variable 1300 light years from Earth, ranging...
25×100 ED Ultra First Light
It seemed like the forecast for Saturday night (4 March 2023) would not hold up, based on visual satellite imagery, but despite some hazy clouds and a 94.9% illuminated 11-day moon the skies were clear enough to do some observing so both the 25x100 ED Ultra and the...
Oberwerk 25×100 ED Ultra
A long anticipated addition to the Oberwerk binocular offerings arrived at my door this afternoon --- the 25x100 ED Ultra with reworked eyepieces to increase eye relief by 4mm (to 14mm). Hopefully this will not be too much eye relief for me, being something of an...
The Cruelty of the Camel
Camelopardalis is a giraffe, not a camel, but the title is too amusing to resist, so I'm going with it. And because inquiring minds want to know, it is said to be pronounced kuh-mel-uh-pahr-dl-is by dictionary.com, but cam-el-oh-par-dal-iss has a more musical ring to...
Basic Equipment for Binocular Astronomy
An advantage of binocular astronomy (compared with telescopes) is that you don't need much equipment to get started. Still, the variety and number of binoculars available is daunting so choosing one can be complicated. And do you need anything other than a binocular?...
Comet ZTF in Camelopardalis
The curious name of Camelopardalis (actually a giraffe) results from the combination of camel+leopard because giraffes look sort of like camels with leopard spots. Or at least people used to think they did, including a Dutch theologian named Petrus Plancius who...
Cloudy Nights Shout Out
Astronomy is a solitary hobby to some extent. Observers often spend much of their time under the sky on their own, a peaceful and relaxing experience, an opportunity to set aside the hectic pace, frustrations, and challenges of daily life. Despite the pleasures of...
Oberwerk 8×32 SE Binocular
Oberwerk has introduced a new SE (Special Edition) series of binoculars, the first of which is the 8x32 SE featured in the Three Supersized Clusters in Taurus sky tour. The binocular has ED optics, for excellent color correction, and an 8.2 degree field of view. The...
Three Super-Sized Clusters in Taurus
The first question one might ask is what makes a star cluster super-sized? And the answer is easy – star clusters that are relatively close to us appear larger in the sky. The first of these three clusters is arguably the best known star cluster of all. It is the...