In this episode of Star Hopping with Kissimmee
Park Observatory, we'll look at the Ursa Major
region, and show you how to find these beautiful
deep sky objects:
NGC 2403
Messier 108
And the Owl Nebula, Messier 97
Alright, Let's Go Star Hopping!

Hey 
Hello Hi and welcome to Episode 46 of Star
Hopping with Kissimmee Park Observatory!
I'm Dave Hearn, and I'm very jolly to be your
host.
In this series of programs we'll show you
the most beautiful sights in the night sky,
and explain exactly how to find them with
your binoculars or your telescope.
Well as the holidays draw even closer, we
have some great deep sky objects rising in
the northeast.
Tonight we’ll be looking at the Ursa Major
region, which contains our favorite asterism,
the Big Dipper.
We talked about the concept of an asterism
in Episode 12 of Star Hopping, so check that
out for some background information.
Also in that episode we checked out the two
showpiece galaxies in Ursa Major, M81 and
M82, so make sure you check them out when
you are finding tonight’s targets.
Not too far away from Bode’s galaxies, the
names for M81 and M82, lies another huge galaxy.
We’ll find it, right after this break.
Star Hopping Target #1
NGC 2403 is a very large spiral galaxy, found
in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis,
the camel.
This is one of the best galaxies in the sky
for small telescopes.
It’s an amazing galaxy that Charles Messier
missed when he compiled his list of deep sky
objects that weren’t comets.
The galaxy lies well above the bowl of the
Big Dipper not too far away from M81 and M82.
NGC 2403 can be easily seen using your 10
x 50 binoculars.
This large, face-on galaxy has some similarity
to M 33 in Triangulum, in that it looks somewhat
ragged or hairy.
It is an intermediate spiral galaxy with a
magnitude of 8.9, and size of 22 minutes of
arc by 12 minutes, so it’s about 3/4 of
the size of the full moon.
It’s big!
The northern spiral arm contains a large star
forming region, separately cataloged as NGC
2404.
To find NGC 2403, we’ll start from the brighter
of the two Pole Pointer stars, Dubhe.
Using it’s partner star, Merak, you can
follow a line from Merak through Dubhe right
to the North Star, Polaris.
So from Dubhe, move a little over 10 degrees
upward to 3rd magnitude h Ursa Majoris.
Now move a little over 8 degrees upward to
3rd magnitude Muscida.
Now move 3 degrees to the lower left, to 4th
magnitude Musieda, also known as Pi 2 Ursa
Majoris.
So here’s a tough move - slide 5 degrees
to the upper left, across the border into
Camelopardalis, to 6th magnitude 51 Camelopardalis.
Now move a half degree to the upper left and
you will see the glow of NGC 2403 moving into
your wide field eyepiece.
This is really a beautiful galaxy, and I need
to make an effort to photograph some time.
The northern sky at the Observatory is a little
light polluted, which is maybe why I haven't
looked at it too much.
But I definitely need to try, so stay tuned
on our Facebook page; you may see an image
of it soon.
This massive galaxy is an outlying member
of the M 81 group of galaxies, and lies about
10 million light years distant.
After this break, we’ll move down into the
bowl of the Big Dipper to pick out two well
known targets.
Stay Tuned.
Star Hopping Target #2
Messier 108 by itself is not a spectacular
galaxy.
It is very much edge-on to our viewpoint from
Earth, but it is not particularly large or
bright.
The saving grace is that since it is edge-on,
it’s easy to see because its light is concentrated
into a thin line.
It is 9 minutes of arc long, so I definitely
wouldn’t call it tiny.
M108 glows faintly at 10th magnitude, but
luckily for us it lies very close to the bright
star Merak that we spoke about earlier.
As I mentioned earlier, Merak is the fainter
of the two Pole Pointers, lying farther away
from Polaris than its partner Dubhe.
To find Messier 108, we will start on Merak,
so get yourself centered on this bright 2nd
magnitude star.
Now there are no bright stars between Merak
and M108, but the trick is to draw an imaginary
line to the third bright star in the Big Dipper,
Phecda, lying 8 degrees below Merak.
Move just a degree and a half down that line,
and slightly right, and you should pick up
the thin slash of light that is Messier 108.
It’s actually surprising how much detail
that can be seen in this galaxy with small
telescopes.
Even though Messier 108 is a barred spiral
galaxy, its many dust lanes and high inclination
angle makes it look like an irregular galaxy.
M 108 is an isolated member of the Ursa Major
cluster of galaxies, lying about 45 million
light-years from Earth.
When I started out I mentioned that M108 wasn’t
too spectacular on it’s own.
But many amateur astronomers see it because
of its more famous neighbor.
We’ll get to know that celebrity object,
right after this break.
Star Hopping Target #3
The Owl Nebula, cataloged as entry 97 on the
Messier List, is a famous planetary nebula
lying only a half degree to the lower right
of Messier 108.
It’s one of the four planetary nebulae in
Messier's catalog, and the third one to be
discovered.
Two of the others also end in 7 and are also
famous; M57 the Ring Nebula, and M27, the
Dumbbell Nebula, and lastly the not so famous
M76, the Little Dumbbell Nebula.
The most interesting feature of the Owl Nebula
is that there are two dark patches within
it, that makes it look like it has a pair
of eyes.
Lord Rosse must have been very imaginative
when he decided that it looked like an owl's
face, and the name stuck.
Well, he did have a 72” telescope that he
was looking through.
For more information about Lord Rosse, and
the 72” Leviathan of Parsonstown, see Episode
8 of our European Astronomy Tour series, when
we visited this massive telescope in Ireland
last summer.
It was extremely impressive.
So let’s do some bird watching and find
the Owl.
Since you were sitting on Messier 108, our
last target, it’s just a quick slide of
a half degree to the lower right.
You’ll be looking for a fat star in your
wide field eyepiece.
When you think you’ve spied it, throw in
your high power eyepiece,.
If you have a nebular filter, it will help
a lot.
If your scope is about 8” or larger, see
if you can spy the dark eyes that make this
nebula so famous.
When viewed through an medium sized scope
under dark sky conditions with a filter, the
Owl appears as a large, faint, circular disk.
The distance to M 97 is somewhat uncertain;
estimates range from 1,300 to 12,000 light
years, with 2,600 being the most likely value.
At this distance, it would have a diameter
of about 2 light years.
So we’ve seen three interesting objects
this week.
We started out with the incredibly beautiful
spiral galaxy, NGC 2403 in the faint northern
constellation of Camelopardalis.
Then we moved down into the bowl of the Big
Dipper, in the constellation of Ursa Major,
and found the edge on and somewhat faint galaxy
M108.
Lastly we located the famous Owl Nebula just
a half degree away from M108.
I’m surprised I haven’t covered M108 and
M97 before this in Star Hopping, but we checked
them off tonight.
So that does it for this week’s episode.
You can find the show notes on our website
at kpobservatory.org/SH046, where you can
comment and leave any questions that you may
have.
You can also contact me personally on Twitter
@StarHoppingMan, where I’d love to help
you with any astronomy or observing questions.
Why don’t you tweet me and let me know how
you’re enjoying Star Hopping?
I’d really love some feedback as we approach
our 50th episode.
In any case, feel free to reach out with your
comments - I’m here to help.
Well thank you very much for joining me here.
As I’ve mentioned before, I know you have
many other options of what you can watch here
on YouTube or listen to on other podcasts,
and I really do appreciate that you’re spending
your time here with me.
Thanks again.
So I’ll see you next time with more Star
Hopping tips and tricks.
I'm Cassie, and I hope you've enjoyed star
hopping around the Milky Way.
We'll continue to bring you these video astronomy
tutorials every week on Thursday, and in their
podcast format on Fridays.
They will be designed to help you find deep
sky objects that are up in the sky at the
time we post them on the Internet.
The reason we create these video and podcasts
is to help beginning amateur astronomers learn
the sky and get more enjoyment out of their
telescopes and astronomy in general.
If you have any requests or suggestions of
potential targets in the night sky that you
would like to see us present, just let us
know down in the comment section below, or
on our website blog.
Don’t miss our free Field Notes for this
episode, basically the script of the show,
with all the images and start charts we use
for our star hopping activities.
You can get them for free at kpobservatory.org/FieldNotes.
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Well thanks again for watching, and we'll
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