Stargazing 2024-11-29: Beehive Cluster (publ. 2024-11-29)

After a long cloudy, warm spell, the temperature dropped down to around -27 deg F and the skies began to clear up. Last night (2024-11-28) the skies were very clear, but we were busy with Thanksgiving festivities, and I couldn't stay up any later after we got home.

This morning, the skies were still mostly clear, except a few wispy Cirrus clouds. I was able to manage about 30 minutes of stargazing before needing to head off to work. Temps were still very cold but I put on my thermal insulated pants, a sweater, my winter boots, two coats, a scarf, a hat, and my electric heated gloves, and I was able to stay warm. Thankfully, my binoculars didn't frost over, which can happen due to my having to breath near them.

Initially, I was going to focus on Leo, but the stars seemed very dim, apparently due to the wispy cloud right in that area of the sky. I took a quick glance at Mars with the binocs and noticed a cluster right next to it, which I later identified as M 44, the Beehive Cluster. So I decided to do a quick sketch of just that field of view, a five degree circle in my binoculars. Here is the sketch:

sketch of M 44 beehive cluster

I imagined that Robert would have already done a much more impressive sketch, but I was unable to find one on his site, and he confirmed he had not done one yet, though he had observed it many times. He is planning to do one later, though. Here is another link to his great Gemini capsule:

Shizy's Stargazing Capsule

Mars' bright red color is always a treat to look at. I wish I had a setup where I could view planetary detail — maybe I'll get around to fixing that 90mm refractor some day and see how that does. My 60mm refractor — not an expensive model — just gives a solid disc of one color, even looking at Jupiter.

Nevertheless, I'm quite thankful for this morning, and also for the other stargazing I have been able to do this last year. I could say a few more things about that, but I need to clock back in from my lunch break.