Telescope Reviews: NGC 2362

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Observing >> Deep Sky Observing

Pages: 1

joelimite
Carpal Tunnel

Reged: 09/01/08

Loc: Fayetteville, AR

NGC 2362
#5623703 - 01/15/13 12:34 AM

I'm working my way through the H400 and stumbled upon this cluster in Canis Major tonight. Wow! Simply stunning. I think I have a new favorite winter open cluster. How did Messier miss this one?

Post Extras:

RolandosCY
super member

Reged: 01/02/09

Loc: Nicosia, Cyprus

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: joelimite]
#5623759 - 01/15/13 01:53 AM

Indeed. An amazing cluster! By the way, a sure way to impress girlfrind / fiancee / wife or candidate for any of the three!!!!

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drbyyz
sage

Reged: 11/04/12

Loc: Summerville, SC

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: RolandosCY]
#5624037 - 01/15/13 09:16 AM

Clouds keep moving in before Canis Major rises into my observing "zone" so I haven't had a chance to check this one off yet. I'll put a note on my list to put my observation on this thread when I finally get a chance at it. Sounds nice!

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blb
Post Laureate

Reged: 11/25/05

Loc: Piedmont NC

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: drbyyz]
#5624125 - 01/15/13 10:22 AM

Yes, the Tau Canis Major cluster is a jewel in the sky. The darker the sky and the more magnifican you use the more stars you see. I too love this cluster. It is often called the Mexican Jumping Bean cluster because Tau seams to continue moving when the tube is taped after the other stars appear to stop moving.

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Dave Mitsky
Postmaster

Reged: 04/08/02

Loc: PA, USA, Planet Earth

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: joelimite]
#5626166 - 01/16/13 01:05 PM

Quote:

How did Messier miss this one?

Charles Messier missed many bright deep-sky objects during his searches for comets. On the other hand, he included some bright, naked-eye objects that were known from antiquity in the first publication of his catalog, presumably in order to "pad" it.

When William Herschel began a systematic search for DSOs employing telescopes that were far superior to the ones Messier used, Messier apparently lost interest in cataloging "nebulae".

http://messier.seds.org/m-q&a.html#chi&h_Per

NGC 2362, one of the youngest open clusters, was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654, long before Messier's day. It's possible that Messier was unaware of its existence.

http://www.ngcicproject.org/ngcicdb.asp

The so-called Mexican jumping bean effect, which can be quite striking, is attributed to what is known as persistence of vision but apparently there is some question as to the validity of that concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_vision

Dave Mitsky

Post Extras:

drbyyz
sage

Reged: 11/04/12

Loc: Summerville, SC

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: Dave Mitsky]
#5627338 - 01/17/13 01:33 AM

Spent a few minutes with this guy tonight. Very nice indeed. I particularly liked the triangle shape of the cluster. Geometric shapes in clusters always makes me happy for some reason. Tried the "jumping bean" thing taping the scope but had no result, no biggie though, seemed like a weird thing anyway.

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of clusters going through the Hershel 400, but this one was a very nice break. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

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ensign
professor emeritus

Reged: 12/16/08

Loc: Southwestern Ontario

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: drbyyz]
#5627724 - 01/17/13 10:01 AM

Quote:

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of clusters going through the Hershel 400, but this one was a very nice break. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've been thinking about the plethora of open clusters in the sky and wondering if one way to counteract this problem is to study the Trumpler classification system and see if I can correctly classify the clusters I observe.

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blb
Post Laureate

Reged: 11/25/05

Loc: Piedmont NC

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: ensign]
#5627778 - 01/17/13 10:40 AM

Quote:

I've been thinking about the plethora of open clusters in the sky and wondering if one way to counteract this problem is to study the Trumpler classification system and see if I can correctly classify the clusters I observe.

Mike,
I think this is a great idea but does not the classification change with the size of the telescope your using and/or the amount of light pollution you have? I mean that more stars will be seen with larger scopes and/or less light pollution. It would seem to me that this would change how many stars you would see and how detached the cluster would appear, hence the clusters classification. Still though, I love the Trumpler classification system and think it tells us a lot about the cluster before we look at it.

Post Extras:

tnakazon
sage

Reged: 06/26/10

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: Dave Mitsky]
#5627924 - 01/17/13 11:46 AM

Quote:

Quote:

How did Messier miss this one?

Charles Messier missed many bright deep-sky objects during his searches for comets...

NGC 2362, one of the youngest open clusters, was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654, long before Messier's day. It's possible that Messier was unaware of its existence...

Dave Mitsky

Working from Paris, NGC 2362 was far too low down the horizon for Messier to have easily picked up. Batista worked from a more southerly latitude in Sicily and this cluster was higher up in the sky. Those of us living in the southern U.S. are fortunate to have more access to southerly constellations and their DSO's, compared to those living in more northerly latitudes. The Tau cluster is also one of my favorites.

What fascinates me about Hodierna is that he was doing deep sky work over a century before Messier and his work lay buried for several centuries before it was rediscovered in the 1980's.

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blb
Post Laureate

Reged: 11/25/05

Loc: Piedmont NC

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: tnakazon]
#5628996 - 01/17/13 10:16 PM

Quote:

Working from Paris, NGC 2362 was far too low down the horizon for Messier to have easily picked up...

Really? NGC 2362 has a Dec. of -24d57m while M7 has a Dec. of -34d49m. That means that NGC 2362 is 9 degrees and 52 minutes higher in the sky than M7.

The latitude of Paris is N48d52m, so the southern horizon would be at a south Declination of -41d08m. That means that M7 only had an altitude of 06d19m when it crossed the meridian but NGC 2362 had an altitude of 23d55m when it crossed the meridian. That's high enough to be found.

I think if Charles Messier had looked here he would have found this cluster. We need to remember that Messier was hunting comets and not making a survey of the sky like Herschel. He recorded only those objects he, or others, found while hunting comets.

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KidOrion
professor emeritus

Reged: 07/07/07

Loc: Carbondale, IL

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: blb]
#5629156 - 01/17/13 11:56 PM

My favorite open cluster, bar none.

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tnakazon
sage

Reged: 06/26/10

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: blb]
#5629264 - 01/18/13 01:53 AM

Quote:

Quote:

Working from Paris, NGC 2362 was far too low down the horizon for Messier to have easily picked up...

Really? NGC 2362 has a Dec. of -24d57m while M7 has a Dec. of -34d49m. That means that NGC 2362 is 9 degrees and 52 minutes higher in the sky than M7...

Oops - my error, thanks for correcting me on this! It would definitely have been easy if he was able to pick up M6 & M7 lower in the horizon, especially since he didn't have to deal with the light pollution that we have today.

Post Extras:

Tony Flanders
Postmaster

Reged: 05/18/06

Loc: Cambridge, MA, USA

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: blb]
#5629367 - 01/18/13 05:22 AM

Quote:

Quote:

Working from Paris, NGC 2362 was far too low down the horizon for Messier to have easily picked up...

Really? NGC 2362 has a Dec. of -24d57m while M7 has a Dec. of -34d49m. That means that NGC 2362 is 9 degrees and 52 minutes higher in the sky than M7.

I think if Charles Messier had looked here he would have found this cluster.

Sure, but M6 and M7 are by far the southernmost objects in his list, and he already knew that they existed from other sources. The Messier list definitely thins out below declination -20.

I agree on the second point, though. Messier certainly could have seen this. But comet hunters look low in the east and west, near the Sun, and rarely low in the south.

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uniondrone
Carpal Tunnel

Reged: 12/05/09

Loc: Streetlight Archipelago

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: Tony Flanders]
#5629690 - 01/18/13 10:58 AM

Quote:

Sure, but M6 and M7 are by far the southernmost objects in his list, and he already knew that they existed from other sources. The Messier list definitely thins out below declination -20.

I agree on the second point, though. Messier certainly could have seen this. But comet hunters look low in the east and west, near the Sun, and rarely low in the south.

Makes sense to me. Yet, Messier was able to find M93 which is nearby and not of greatly differing brightness than NGC 2362. He must of made a sweep of the area, unless M93 was reported to him by one of his collaborators.

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ensign
professor emeritus

Reged: 12/16/08

Loc: Southwestern Ontario

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: blb]
#5629709 - 01/18/13 11:09 AM

Quote:

Quote:

I've been thinking about the plethora of open clusters in the sky and wondering if one way to counteract this problem is to study the Trumpler classification system and see if I can correctly classify the clusters I observe.

Mike,
I think this is a great idea but does not the classification change with the size of the telescope your using and/or the amount of light pollution you have? I mean that more stars will be seen with larger scopes and/or less light pollution. It would seem to me that this would change how many stars you would see and how detached the cluster would appear, hence the clusters classification. Still though, I love the Trumpler classification system and think it tells us a lot about the cluster before we look at it.

I don't yet know enough about how Trumpler actually did his classifications. What got me thinking about this is that last summer I was hunting down NGC 188 and when I found it I remarked to a friend that it reminded me of NGC 7789.

The friend didn't see the similarity, but when I checked the Trumpler classification for these two, it turned out that they are the same (type II 2 r).

In any case, trying to classify the clusters and then comparing them to what Trumpler came up with should make observing them at least a little more interesting.

Post Extras:

Dave Mitsky
Postmaster

Reged: 04/08/02

Loc: PA, USA, Planet Earth

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: uniondrone]
#5629889 - 01/18/13 12:43 PM

Quote:

Makes sense to me. Yet, Messier was able to find M93 which is nearby and not of greatly differing brightness than NGC 2362. He must of made a sweep of the area, unless M93 was reported to him by one of his collaborators.

According to the NGC/IC Project, M93 was discovered by Messier in 1781.

http://www.ngcicproject.org/ngcicdb.asp

Dave Mitsky

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joelimite
Carpal Tunnel

Reged: 09/01/08

Loc: Fayetteville, AR

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: drbyyz]
#5630782 - 01/18/13 11:11 PM

Quote:

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of clusters going through the Hershel 400, but this one was a very nice break. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I agree. I'm amazed by the variety of clusters out there, but NGC 2362 was definitely a nice surprise compared to some of the lesser clusters on the list. It's quickly become one of my all-time favorite open clusters, up there with the Double Cluster and Pleiades.

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Feidb
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/09/09

Loc: Nevada

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: joelimite]
#5631908 - 01/19/13 05:26 PM

It was our March 2012 Observer's Challenge. Quite a beautiful and startling cluster, especially with the bright star in the middle. I can't off-hand think of another cluster quite like it.

As for the Herschel 400 open clusters, I found many of them a real pain. The average description was a vague grouping of stars among many more. I had a hard time picking some of them out and that was one of the few times I had to cheat and rely on neighbor's GOTOs to verify I was looking at the correct spot. I haven't had that much trouble with the Collinders, at least most of them. Part of that might have been the site I was using back then, now that I think about it...

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Starman81
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 03/06/08

Loc: Metro Detroit, MI, USA

Re: NGC 2362 new

[Re: joelimite]
#5632125 - 01/19/13 07:48 PM

Quote:

Quote:

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of clusters going through the Hershel 400, but this one was a very nice break. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I agree. I'm amazed by the variety of clusters out there, but NGC 2362 was definitely a nice surprise compared to some of the lesser clusters on the list. It's quickly become one of my all-time favorite open clusters, up there with the Double Cluster and Pleiades.

That's quite the glowing endorsement--time to put it on the list!

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