Posted on 01/03/2024 5:28:17 PM PST by nickcarraway
A strange brew of astronomical oddities awaits you and your telescope.
Two years ago, our special January issue brought forth a popular package, 101 Must-See Cosmic Objects. Now we follow it up in a very different direction. My thought this time was to produce something covering not the brightest, but some of the strangest celestial objects you can see or image with amateur telescopes.
Some of the present 101 objects have strange names — Gyulbudaghian’s Nebula, Purgathofer-Weinberger 1, or Gomez’s Hamburger. Some are weird stars — Tabby’s Star, Eta Carinae, or FU Orionis. Some are strange regions of the sky filled with color and apparently exotic behaviors — Rho Ophiuchi, the Red Spider Nebula, or the Jewel Box.
Most of these 101 objects, however, are really compelling and odd ducks that can be explored from a dark-sky site. Want an astrophotographic challenge? Try shooting the nearby galaxies Maffei 1 and 2, which are so heavily obscured by the Milky Way that they weren’t discovered until 1967. How about spying really odd planetary nebulae? Take a shot at the Saturn Nebula, the Lemon Slice Nebula, or Jones 1.
With the right scope, you can see a quasar, 3C 273, from your backyard, or the galaxy with a quasar near it, NGC 4319 and Markarian 205, that caused a years-long controversy over redshifts as distance indicators. The sky is loaded with mysterious galaxies. Take a peek at Zwicky’s Triplet, Seyfert’s Sextet, or the Hercules Galaxy Cluster.
In short, you’ll find many hours of cosmic exploration in this issue, whether you spy some of these creatures with your own eyes, capture them with a camera, or merely enjoy reading about them on these pages.
Have fun with the journey. I’ll be taking it right beside you.
How small we are.
I only subscribe to one magazine, and it’s Astronomy. Always great pics and articles about one of the most fascinating of subjects-—the universe.
Google “Haumea”.Not a deep space object but pretty weird.
I’ve seen the Saturn Nebula-it’s a planetary nebula- not a planet, but seems small, and actually resembles the planet Saturn.
I used to subscribe to Sky and Telescope and Astronomy. I haven’t looked at an issue of either in years.
Nice images.
Some are weird, but most don’t seem to be that unusual.
Honestly, i would expect anything *ordinary* in space to not the norm. There’s probably far more *weird stuff* than we have any idea about.
I subscribe to both, an indulgence, I admit. S&T is more “serious”, Astronomy more “popular”. It’s Time Magazine (when it was good) vs. People.
There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
reading your comment gave me a sliver of hope... how much of those pics are actually real?? ...or are they AI enhanced or down right just fake images?...
Right. I always considered S&T as being more “technical”.
Both are great magazines.
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