Astroblog: Mars close to globular cluster M19 (7 September 2016)

Wednesday, September 07, 2016

Mars close to globular cluster M19 (7 September 2016)


Mars as seen from Adelaide at 22:00 ACST on 7 September, simiar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. Click to embiggen.	Simulated binocular view of M19 and Mars. you will need to click to embiggen to see M19. M19 is faint and fuzzy under suburban skies in binoculars, so this is an accurate simulation.

Black and white printable chart suitable for use with binoculars or telescopes. The large circle is the field of view of 10x50 binoculars, the small circle the FOV of a 30 mm eyepiece with a 114mm reflector. Click to embiggen and print (use with redlight torches so as to not destroy your night vision)	M19 and Mars taken with iTelescope T12. M19 is at the top. Mars (near the bottom) is grossly over exposed in this 10 second exposure. Click to embiggen

For the next seven days Mars will be within a binocular field of the magnitude 6.8 globular cluster M19. This will look rather nice, even tonight, under suburban skies struggling with cloud, M19 was clearly visible as a fuzzy patch in binoculars near Mars. Of course over the next few days the waxing moonlight will make it harder to see the globular cluster.

However, on the night of the 7th Mars and M19 will be less than a degree apart, an will fit easily into a low power eyepiece of a telescope. while they should be fine to the unaided eye, photographing them will be a bit of a juggling act as the brightness of Mars will overwhelm the dimmer globular cluster (see the itelescope image above).

Mars will be a little over 1 degree away on the 8th, but will still fit in many low power telescope eyepieces.Well worth having a look.

on the 11th and 12th Mars wil be around a degree from the yellow orange binary 36 Ophiuchi (36 on the black and white map) a rather nice view in small telescopes)

Labels: binocular, cluster, iTelescope, Mars, telescope