Due to the COVID-19 virus, Wesleyan University has officially CANCELED ALL CLASSES AND GROUP ACTIVITIES FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEMESTER, which includes Public Observing.

Currently the March thru August sessions are canceled, but please check back with us for updates.

Scheduled time for Public Observing: 9pm – 11pm

Wesleyan Alumni & Family night.

Solar System Objects:

The Moon and planets will not be visible tonight, they are below the horizon.

Deep-sky Objects:

One of the brightest globular star clusters is M13 , 50° high in the East by 10pm. M13 is about 25,000 light years away in the constellation Hercules, and contains about 300,000 stars. There are about 250 globular clusters in orbit around the center of the Milky Way. Photo below by ASGH member Al Johnson.

Not as much detail will be visible in the eyepiece as in this image, but nevertheless it appears impressive in a telescope.

The galaxy M104, the “Sombrero Galaxy” is shown below, it’s one of the larger members of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, which is 65 million light years away. Several of the cluster’s brighter members could be visible in a telescope tonight.

M104 photo courtesy Joe Roberts, an ASGH member. Visit his website to see more of his astrophotography.

Double Stars: Gamma Leonis (Algieba) and Gamma Virginis (Porrima) are both interesting. The stars of Gamma Leonis show a color contrast, and the orbital motion of the components of Gamma Virginis is visible on a time scale of decades.

Star Charts and other Information:

A very useful monthly star chart can be downloaded here from SkyMaps.com, giving information on objects visible with the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescope.

For current astronomical events see Sky and Telescope Magazine’s “This Week’s Sky at a Glance”.