Date: Saturday July 11 Star Party in Taos
Who: This is a public event, so please share this announcement
Time: 9:00 pm
Location: Rio Grande del Norte Cascabel trailhead @ end of CR 110 in Taos
Directions: From Highway 68, turn onto County Route 110 and drive west. Continue on CR 110 until it ends at Rio Grande del Norte parking lot. Please turn off your headlights in advance and be mindful that bright lights will hinder viewing.
What can be seen:
We can aim telescopes directly toward the core of the Milky Way. Earth is located on one of the outer spirals of our galaxy, approximately 25,000 to 30,000 light-years from the core. Sagittarius A is a black hole at the core center.
Other objects of interest:
- (1.) Scorpius has some notable, bright clusters:
- M4 and M80, globular clusters near Antares
- M6 and M7, open clusters near the tail of the scorpion
- (2.) Sagittarius has over a dozen globular clusters. Explain that we are seeing these objects at varying distances between Earth and the galaxy core:
- M22 – bright globular cluster
- M8 – Lagoon Nebula, an open cluster inside a nebula,
- M20 – Trifid Nebula
- M24 Star Cloud – a giant cloud of stars, larger than most clusters and with more stars. Astronomers speculate whether the cloud broke off gravitationally from one of the spiral arms.
- M17 – Swan or Checkmark Nebula
- M16 – Eagle Nebula. If use the 30″ scope with a UHC filter in its eyepiece, we can probably see the Pillars of Creation.
