What's In The Sky - February 2021

Clear February nights present some great stargazing opportunities, as suggested here by Orion Telescopes and Binoculars. Be sure to bundle up and keep warm while you get outside for some stargazing fun!

M81 - The Cigar Galaxy and M82 - Bode's Galaxy in Ursa Major. Image processed by Insight Observatory Starbase subscriber, Daniel Nobre, from image data acquired on the 16" f/3.7 Dream astrograph reflector (ATEO-1).

Bright Galaxies

In late February, bright galaxies M81 and M82 will be about as high in the sky as they will get for North American stargazers. From a dark sky site, these galaxies are visible with a 50mm or larger binocular, but we suggest you use a large telescope to chase these galaxies down just off the leading edge of the Big Dipper asterism. Many observers consider M81 and M82 the best pairing of visual galaxies in the sky!

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy (left) was processed by Utkarsh Mishra, and M45 was processed by Chris Lin, both imaged on ATEO-1 using Insight Observatory's online Personal Image Request (PIR) application.

Binocular Targets

Astronomy isn't always about how much gear you have! Grab some Astro binoculars and check out the night sky without a lot of equipment. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is high in the sky in the evening right now, with the Pleiades (M45) higher up. Both make great targets for almost any binocular!

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter

On February 11th, there is a conjunction between Venus and Jupiter in the early morning just before sunrise. With a separation of 0.5 degrees, the pair will be close enough together to fit into the field of view of most telescopes with around 75x-100x magnification. Plus, with Saturn still nearby, it's a great morning for planetary viewing. Get up early, find a clear southeastern horizon, and see if you can get a good view before sunrise!

M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo (left) and M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici (right), both imaged on ATEO-1 by Charles Weaver using Insight Observatory's online Personal Image Request (PIR) application.

Midnight Spirals

Some galaxies for the night owls, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) and the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), are some nice spiral galaxies that are both visible after midnight in February. The spiral arms of M51 can be glimpsed under dark skies with a 4.5" telescope, but will have more definition in larger telescopes. M104 is similar; it is visible in a 4" telescope, but to distinguish the central "bulge" and 8" or larger instrument is required.

All objects described above can easily be seen with the suggested equipment from a dark sky site, a viewing location some distance away from city lights, where light pollution and bright moonlight do not overpower the stars.

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Featured Deep-Sky Object - M104 Sombrero Galaxy

The spring evening sky presents a plethora of galaxies to observe through remote robotic and backyard telescopes. One galaxy in particular that has interesting and unique characteristics is known as the Sombrero Galaxy, also called M104 or NGC 4594.

The Sombrero Galaxy is about 28 million light-years (50,000 light-years in diameter) from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The galaxy is so named because the halo-like features surrounding its disc are unusually large, making it look like a sombrero. It's not exactly known who discovered the galaxy. The discoverer was either Pierre Mechain or Charles Messier. William Herschel independently discovered the object in 1784, even though it had already been discovered by others.

M104  - "Sombrero Galaxy" in Virgo, imaged by Sam P. and Tom M.

The Sombrero Galaxy is a favorite target for well-equipped amateur astronomers. If you have a good dark-sky site, the object can be spotted through binoculars (those with large telescopes can spot the dust lane). This spring and early summer object can be found halfway between the constellations Virgo and Corvus.

Location of M104 in the Constellation Virgo

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope have been used to study the Sombrero in visible and infrared light. The star-birth regions stand out in infrared wavelengths and are mostly located along the outer rim of the dust ring surrounding the galaxy’s core. The Sombrero Galaxy looks as it does partly because we are viewing it “edge-on” from our point of view here on Earth.

"Close observations of the central bulge display many points of light that are actually around 2000 globular clusters that hover around the core of the galaxy, and the number could be related to the size of the central bulge. M104's spectacular dust rings host many younger and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers don't yet fully understand," stated the NASA website Astronomy Picture Of The Day in a July 2013 entry.

Examination of the galaxy in recent years revealed that it had a sort of "split personality," NASA said on another website, showing that is a large elliptical galaxy that has a disk galaxy embedded inside of it. The reason this happened is still poorly understood.

The image to the upper-left was acquired by 6th-grade students at the Plymouth Community Intermediate School located in Massachusetts as part of a class astronomy education project called "The Galaxy Project - What Lies Beyond the Stars?" The image was taken with a 17" telescope remotely in New Mexico with a 5-minute exposure.

Sources: Space.com, Space-Facts.com

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First Test Images from New Mexico Skies

While the Insight Observatory specializes in astronomy education staff remains hard at work developing a plan and raising funds for the implementation of the 16" f/3.75 Dream Aerospace Systems astrograph telescope in New Mexico, we decided to move ahead with our primary goal of starting to seek out educational research projects for students to participate in before the location of the telescope is complete.  

iTelescope.com's T-3 used to image Insight Observatory's first images

The first step was to find a temporary, however, sufficient Remote Robotic Telescope facility that currently offers access to imaging and the collecting of data. After many days of searching different programs available on the internet, Insight Observatory decided to create a "Starter-Trial" account with iTelescope.net.

After reviewing their excellent and intuitive tutorials on how to use their telescopes and software for collecting astronomical images remotely, the decision was not hard to make. The first night of gathering images was a complete success due to their clear and concise instructions on how to use the website. I set a reservation for 2:00 am MST (4:00 am EST) for use of their Takahashi TOA-150 using an  SBIG ST2000XMC One-Shot Color CCD camera located in Mayhill, New Mexico (New Mexico Skies). My targets were three spiral galaxies and one elliptical galaxy for this test session. I successfully acquired images of M64 (Black Eye Galaxy), M104 (Sombrero Galaxy), M66 (Spiral Galaxy) in Leo, and M49 (Elliptical Galaxy) in Virgo. I have included these slightly processed images from this morning observing run below...

M64 - "Black Eye Galaxy" in Coma Berenices

M49 - Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo

M66 - Spiral Galaxy in Leo

M104 - "Sombrero Galaxy" in Virgo

Tomorrow morning I have an automated script setup to run utilizing iTelescope.net's "Plan Generator". This means I will be acquiring this image while I am asleep! The target is NGC 2903, a Spiral Galaxy in Leo.

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