A planetary nebula to crow about – Astronomy Now

Amidst the myriad spring galaxies lies NGC 4361, a big and vibrant planetary nebula situated within the southern constellation of Corvus, the Crow. Finding it means dipping low in the direction of the murkier skies near the horizon, nevertheless it’s nicely value the additional effort to search out and observe it.

Corvus lies south of the ‘bowl’ of Virgo asterism.NGC 4361 varieties the apex of an upside-down triangle with magnitude +2.9 Algorab (delta [d] Corvi) and magnitude +2.6 Gienah (gamma [g] Corvi), the northern pair of stars in Corvus’ irregular quadrilateral-shaped asterism of third-magnitude stars. It lies about 2.5° from each stars. NGC 4361 culminates at round 11.30pm BST at an elevation of simply in need of 20°. 

NGC 4361 seems clearly as a nebula by way of a 150mm (six-inch) telescope at an influence of 50x, although a small telescope will wrestle to indicate it as something apart from an ‘out-of-focus star’ at low energy. Picture present a pleasant object, masking nearly 2’ at its fullest.

As attention-grabbing as NGC 4361 is it’s not Corvus’ stand out object. This accolade falls on the exceptional Antennae galaxies, the colliding NGC 4038 and NGC 4038. The pair lie simply over 5° west of NGC 4361, so it’ll be a waste in case you miss out on looking for and observe them. 

NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 are popularly referred to as the Antennae for the streamers of stars, gasoline and mud stripped out from each galaxies on account of their violent celestial encounter. They’re situated simply to the west of the Corvus’ aforementioned asterism; sweep 3.5° south-west of Gienah (gamma [γ] Corvi, magnitude +2.6). Each are relatively small and similarly-bright galaxies (magnitude +10.7, with NGC 4039 to the south barely the bigger, spanning 3.2’ x 2.2’ versus 2.6’ x 1.8’ for NGC 4038. Owing to the Antennae’s low altitude from the UK, a 150mm (six-inch) telescope exhibits the pair as only a fuzzy halo about 2.5’ throughout.

Deep newbie photos can present among the turmoil and destruction that the encounter has unleashed, together with the superb ‘antennae’.