A fortuitous Cascade

by Greg Parker

The rain spoiled my weekend, so even though the moon was fierce last night I took my toys out to the field by the Cupertino Library, two blocks from my apartment. Not the darkest place in the world, but when the moon casts a bigger shadow than the streetlights nearby I figure it doesn't matter much.

My favorite observing style is serendipitous browsing rather than target hunting: point the scope at a likely-looking part of the sky and cruise around at low power. I sketch any interesting objects and look up my "discoveries" on the charts later. My experience is brief enough that there are plenty of exciting sights to find this way.

This night I started surfing in the Cassiopeia-Perseus region, not really expecting to see much through the combined might of city and moon glare. After a few minutes I came across a small cluster that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. As I plotted the twenty-odd stars I noticed a curious string of maybe twenty more stars leading away. Hey, didn't NightWatch mention a chain of stars leading to a cluster or something? Why yes - it was Kemble's Cascade and NGC 1502, matching the drawings perfectly. I'm sure next time I go looking, it won't be nearly as easy to find.

I turned next to the center of Auriga, where the DeepMap promised more open clusters. M36 and M38 were easy finds, and quite pretty even against the gray. I enjoyed panning back and forth to compare the two. Somehow I missed M37 entirely - something to look forward to when I revisit them under darker skies, I guess!