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Archive for January 21, 2025

Ephemeris: 01/21/2025 – How to find the Great Orion Nebula

January 21, 2025 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 21st. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 5:36, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:11. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 2:01 tomorrow morning.

The constellation Orion the hunter is in the southeast at 8 PM. Its rectangle of four stars lean to the left and frame his belt of three stars in a straight line in the center of the rectangle. Below the belt is what appear to the unaided eye as three more stars arranged in a shorter straight line, his sword. Binoculars aimed at the middle stars of the sword will find a glowing haze around those stars. That is the Great Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42 or M 42. It is the birthplace of stars, illuminated by a clutch of four hot young stars. Besides stars and protostars being born in the nebula, there are also many double planets not belonging to stars discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. The planets are only detectable in the infrared, Webb’s specialty.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

An animated GIF for finding the Great Orion nebula, M 42
An animated GIF for finding the Great Orion nebula, M 42. Orion is oriented as it would appear in the southeast at 8:00 PM in late January. The nebula appears as a glow around what looks, to the naked eye, the center star of Orion’s sword. The glow of the nebula may be visible to the naked eye and in binoculars. But a low power telescope is the best way to see it. Created using stellarium, LibreOffice draw, and GIMP.
The stars and nebulae in Orion's Sword are photographed here in one of GTAS' members Dan Dall'Olmo's earlier photographs of the Great Orion Nebula
The stars and nebulae in Orion’s Sword are photographed here in one of GTAS’ members Dan Dall’Olmo’s earlier photographs of the Great Orion Nebula. The three stars of the sword seen by the naked eye are actually multiple stars rather than the single stars as in Orion’s Belt. In telescopes only the brightest part of the nebula shows up to the to the eye. However, the lower the power the brighter the nebula, and the more is visible. One of the cool things that is visible in a telescope is that blue streamer coming down on the left side of the nebula. It is about 1,344 light years away.

The blog’s archive has many other posts about the Great Orion Nebula and other nebulae in Orion.

Categories: Ephemeris Program, Nebula, Observing Tags: , , ,