BINOCULAR TOUR

Split some tricky doubles, find two brilliant balls of stars and give yourself a black eye

Steve Tonkin

1. M3 We’ll start the tour with one of the best globular clusters in the northern sky. There are no nearby bright stars to help you find it. However, if you look mid-way between Arcturus (Alpha (α) Boötis) and mag. + 2.9 Cor Caroli (Alpha (α) Canem Venaticorum), you should find what looks like a badly focused star. This is the glow of the nearly half-million stars of globular cluster M3. □ SEEN IT 2. M53 Our next globular cluster lies 1° north-east of mag. +4.4 Diadem (Alpha (α) Comae Berenices). This tiny misty patch will appear to grow in size, fuzziness and brightness if you centre it in the field of view and then avert your gaze back to Diadem. This is M53, and the apparent changes you just…

You're reading a preview of

BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.