Constellation tour in Winter
Canis Major (The Great Dog)


Click on image to enlarge

Date & Time: Dec 10 2020, from 24:54 to 25:30 JST(+0900)
Composed 8 shots with 5 minutes exposed
Optical: TAMRON 17-35mm Di OSD (f=24mm, stop: F4.0)
with IDAS LPS-P2-FF & Kenko Softon Clear filters
Auto-guided with Kenko SKYMEMO Equatorial
Digital Camera: Canon EOS 550D (Remodeled)
Location: Ooizumi, Hokuto city, Yamanashi pref.

Camera Settings: Recording Format...14bit CCD-RAW, converted to 16bit TIFF(5184×3456)
Sensitivity...ISO800




Astroarts StellaNavigator
The master of constellations in winter skies is Orion, and perhaps you'll agree that the master of stars should be alpha Canis Majoris, Sirius. The brightest star in heavens has the magnitude of -1.5, certainly it's no giant at an estimated 1.5 Sun diameters. Its brightness of worthy of special mention comes from the fact that the star is very close to our system at 8.6 light years away.
In ancient Egypt, the appearance of Sirius in the eastern dawn sky was considered that indicates a flood of the Nile River, the observation of Sirius was important affair for farmers.
The name of Sirius comes from the Greek meaning "scorching", because the ancient Greek had believed that the season of hot summer was caused when the Sun and Sirius lined up. It's surely that the right ascension of Sirius is near to that of the summer solstice.
This image has been cropped with an equivalent focal length of 28mm.



Guide for Deep Sky Objects

M41 .....Open Cluster 4 degrees South of Sirius, 2470 ly. away
NGC2204 .....Medium-scaled open cluster at 1.8deg. WSW of βCMa, 13.4 thousand ly away
NGC2207 & IC2163 .....Small colliding galactic pair in western field.
NGC2217 .....Barred face-on galaxy with a outer ring in SW region, 65 million ly away
NGC2280 .....Medium-scaled spiral galaxy 3deg. WNW of εCMa, 75 million ly away
NGC2292, NGC2293 .....Lenticular galaxy pair at 3deg. NW of εCMa, 107 million ly away
Around NGC2354 .....Open cluster 1.5 degree East of delta CMa with a size of 20 arc minutes
NGC2362 .....Small and dense open cluster about 2.7 deg. east of delta CMa
Duck Nebula(NGC2359) .....Compact diffused nebula at 9deg. NE of Sirius.
Sh2-301 .....Small diffused nebula 5deg. ESE of Sirius.
Sh2-308 .....Round diffused nebula 2deg. west of ο2 CMa (The Milk pod Nebula).
vdB96 .....10'-sized reflection nebula at 3.5deg. NE of δCMa




Eridanus & Fornax

Puppis


Copyright(c) 2020 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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