Binocular deepsky from 16 south

by Jamie Dillon


Well, I said in that report on seeing Alpha Centauri that there'd be more. This is a hair daunting, with an obvious comparison to a TAC series not long ago from southern skies. Jay Freeman was at the Onizuka Center with a 10" and decades of seasoned expertise. These observations were with 7x50's at sea level.

Binocular observation sure has an allure of its own. There's that sense of sweep across constellations or the Milky Way that nothing beats. And it didn't take much sacrifice to spend hours roaming from Carina to Crux and Centaurus.

Rhapsodizing aside, here are highlights to catch when you go south:

Kept going back to my first known goal, a set of 3 clusters in Puppis that we can see from hilltops here: NGC 2451 (loose and bright around the bright star c Puppis) with neighbors 2477 (dense alluring big mesh of stars) and 2546 (even bigger, sparkly and self-indulgent). Is this how they write in the tropics? That bright star, c Puppis, is real red as well, amid its white and blue neighbors. As Jay mentioned Friday night, this set looks a lot like M46 and M47 together.

Bill Schultz was looking at these same clusters from Coe, maybe the same nights.

IC 2602 is an arresting bright blue cluster around theta Carinae, extravagant. There are other naked eye OC's in that area that'd have names if they were in northern skies. 3532, just off the Keyhole, is denser than the Beehive and real big, a splash. Phil Harrington in his superb book, Touring the Universe thru Binoculars, goes on and on about 3114, W of the Keyhole. It has long tendrils of arms, also clear in binocs.

Now looking at the Jewel Box is where I could no longer sour-grapes not having a scope handy. It's dense and compact and in binocs clearly full of color, just off beta Crucis, the eastern arm of the Southern Cross. Centaurus A, NGC 5128, was satisfying, huge in the binocs. On two different nights I could make out the dark lane. 4945 is another big galaxy in Centaurus that showed in the 7x50's with averted vision, a slim lozenge shape. And of course there's ole NGC 5139, lastingly misnamed omega Centauri; different nights I played with it, coming in from various angles just to see it jump into the view. Oh.

Those are some of the highlights. Gotta go back south: the Jewel Box is waiting, Alpha Cen needs splitting, Proxima has its finderchart all ready in SkyAtlas, and there's a big glob in Carina, 2808, that was just visible above the sea mist. Plus an OC in Carina, 2516, that I flat missed and is supposed to have a real red star in the middle.

Really am leaning toward one of those girl scopes, like the Orion ST90, that'll fit in a suitcase. With Muller chasing the Hicksons, what's the hurry?