by Ron Bhanukitsiri
After fishing out IC 4756 from Sue French's Smaller Scope Sampler column in S&T, the TV-102 Light Cup decided to give it a try. Although I've seen a planetary nebula from the IC catalog before, this is the first open cluster from the catalog. Thinking that being an object in a **tertiary** catalog (after Messier and NGC), it couldn't possibly be interesting, now could it? A BIG surprise! Literally! Easily located at 22x (40mm Pentax XL) and what a grand cluster! HUGE is an understatement, almost filling the FOV at 3 deg, although its actual size is listed as 51 min. Too many stars to count, guessing more than 100. Reminds me of the huge M44 but this OC is better! Couldn't make out any shape and the OC is more strongly concentrated in the southern part. Lost impact at 30x because the FOV of the 30mm Ultima is way too small! Back to 22x, I strongly got an impression that someone smashed an ice cube on my cement patio and spew out hundreds of tiny ice crystals. Thus, the TV-102 Light Cup christened this open cluster, the "Ice Crystal Cluster". How could Messier have missed this gem? Definitely going into my favorite list! (LM=5.8)
Well, I must admit that I have been thinking about a larger aperture to deal with tough objects. The TV-102 Light Cup must have read my thoughts and decided it was time to run away with the "Run Away Star" also known as the Barnard's Star ;-). During my 1st observation, using the coordinate from 1997 (see link below) I got all confused and thought I couldn't see it because all of the stars were accounted for in my printed chart. Later with the help from **experts**, the Barnard's Star has a current (2000) designation of HIP 87937. A 2nd observation confirmed that I was looking at it right under my eyeball and not seeing it the 1st time. It's quite bright actually. There is a very attention grabbing "V" shape asterism nearby. I counted about 8 stars in it with direct vision, the brightest being the star GSC 425-1844. However, the Barnard's Star is no longer at the exact position of HIP 87937 either and has move further away from the V shape asterism since the year 2000! The Runaway Star is brighter than GSC 425-262 and GSC 425-802, but noticeably dimmer than HD 163774. The observation was made with the 5mm TV Radian (176x). With the 12mm Radian (73x), the Barnard's Star seems to exhibit a very mild reddish color. Oh, just to add some spice to the star chart, if you're wondering where the star GSC 425-184 was, well it's apparently where Barnard's Star was in 1982! (LM=5.8)
Afterward, I did more reading and found out that the star is rushing toward us (i.e. our solar system) from only 5.97 light years away! With a sudden heightened anxiety, I thought my Light Cup and I better get our affairs in order. This episode reminded me so much of the film from the 1950's, "When Worlds Collide". BTW, it was this movie that sparked my first interest in astronomy :-(! Oh, what is this new data? It's coming toward us at 87 miles/sec! Ah, I can at least sleep tonight ;-). And thus, I used to naively think only hard-core astronomers can sit down and spend 1/2 hour just looking at a single star. How infinitely dreary I thought! Now I dig why ;-).
http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/Misc/barnard.html>
http://www.hwy.com.au/~sjquirk/images/barnard.html>
Having caught up with the Light Cup, I assured it that I had no plan to get a light bucket (and with a Vulcan mind shield added "not yet anyway" ;-), stroking its OTA at times. It's now returned home back in the living room.