Two great conjunctions and NGC 457 the ET Cluster

Hi all,

Last week there where two great conjunctions. The first was on
November 5. Venus and Jupiter stood side by side in the western
sky early in the morning. The second great conjunction was on
November 9. At dawn, Venus, Jupiter and the Moon where lined
up in the western sky. From both conjunctions I shot some
images, which you can find in the Astro-Weblog. Just go to
the homepage:

http://www.backyard-astro.com

choose Astro-Weblog from the menu bar on the left, or
goto the weblog entries directly by following these two
links:


http://www.backyard-astro.com/pMachi...id=129_0_1_0_M

http://www.backyard-astro.com/pMachi...id=134_0_1_0_M

I also added a new object to my deepsky TOP-100, NGC 457.
This open cluster, also known as the ET Cluster or Owl Cluster,
can be found in Cassiopeia. I included a downloadable finder
chart (PDF) in the article. NGC 457 lies in the Perseus spiral arm
of our galaxy, and is one of my favourite open clusters in
Cassiopeia,by far more impressive than the two Messier clusters
in Cassiopeia, M103 and M 52. Follow the link below to go
the article.

http://www.backyard-astro.com/deepsky/top100/14.html

Enjoy!

Math

orion94nl wrote in message ...

NGC 457 lies in the Perseus spiral arm
of our galaxy, and is one of my favourite open clusters in
Cassiopeia,by far more impressive than the two Messier clusters
in Cassiopeia, M103 and M 52.

Hm. NGC 457 is utterly delightful, largely because of its resemblance
to an extraterrestrial. Also, NGC 457 can be appreciated fully in a
small scope, which isn't true of either of the Messier clusters.

But more impressive than M52? I beg to differ! M52 is stupendous;
much richer than NGC 452.

- Tony Flanders

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 12:03:23 +0100, orion94nl wrote:

Hi all,

Last week there where two great conjunctions. The first was on
November 5. Venus and Jupiter stood side by side in the western
sky early in the morning. The second great conjunction was on
November 9. At dawn, Venus, Jupiter and the Moon where lined

In my neighborhood they were in the eastern sky. It's not possible
for Venus to be in the western sky early in the morning since it never
gets that "far" from the sun.


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