gallery

Winter Cluster (right)

by BRIAN LULA

Lying about 15 due east of Orions head, the open

cluster NGC 2264 in Monoceros is easily seen in binoculars as a southward-pointing arrowhead of 7th- and
8th-magnitude stars. During the 1950s astronomy
popularizer Leland Copeland aptly tagged this group
of young, hot stars the Christmas Tree cluster because
of its shape. The field is awash in bright nebulosity,
punctuated by the dark Cone Nebula. Yet only the
brightest patches can be glimpsed in large amateur
telescopes even though they are tantalizingly conspicuous in this tricolor CCD image.

Summer Sporadic (below)

by JOHN R. FLINN

With northern Californias Mount Shasta as a scenic

foreground, John Flinn set up his camera last June 8th
hoping to snap some aurora pictures. Despite elevated
levels of solar activity a few days earlier, he saw no
auroras, but Flinn captured this majestic view of a cloudlaced starscape and a lone sporadic meteor.

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December 2000 Sky & Telescope

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

California Moonrise (above)

by JERRY SCHAD

Frequent Gallery contributor Jerry Schad captured this

colorful scene of the full Moon rising behind the San
Diego skyline while building windows reflect twilights
lingering glow on the western horizon.

Auroral Beam (left)

b y J AY B R A U S C H

Another photographer whose work appears regularly

in Gallery is Jay Brausch of Glen Ullin, North Dakota. His
shot of this beamlike auroral feature, which appeared
at 3:00 a.m. last August 29th, marked a personal milestone it was the 1,700th sighting of the northern
lights that he has logged since 1981. His first decade of
auroral observations was summarized in our August
1991 issue, page 199.

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope December 2000

143

Monkey Nebula? (right)

by BRIAN LULA

Today we know the planetary nebula M97 in Ursa

Major as the Owl, after Irelands Lord Rosse commented
during the mid-19th century on the eyelike appearance
of two dark regions within the nebulosity. Things might
be different if more attention had been paid to Rosses
observing assistant, Thomas R. Robinson, who reported
the nebulas appearance as looking like the visage of a
monkey.

Large Magellanic Cloud (below)

by DOUGLAS B. GEORGE

One of the most dramatic celestial sights and a galactic

neighbor of our own Milky Way, the Large Magellanic
Cloud is invisible from temperate northern latitudes and
can be seen to advantage only from locations south of
the equator. If you look carefully, you can find more than
100 star clusters and diffuse nebulae associated with the
irregular galaxy scattered across this 15-wide field.

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December 2000 Sky & Telescope

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Atmospheric Fireworks Near and Far

by VIC LAIRD

Lightning-illuminated thunderheads set the stage for this impressive view of a green aurora captured by Canadian photographer
Vic Laird last July 29th from the plains northeast of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The Pleiades star cluster is visible near center.
2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope December 2000

145

Partial Sunrise
by ODDLEIV SKILBREI

Novembers Gallery featured several photographs of last Julys partial solar eclipse seen at sunset in western North America. The
view here is from a half world away, where Oddleiv Skilbrei and his fiance traveled from southern Norway to northern Sweden in
a race with the weather to catch the same event at sunrise.After crossing the Arctic Circle three times and driving approximately
1,000 miles, Skilbrei writes,we found our observing site 10 miles southeast of Gllivare only minutes before sunrise.

HOW THEY DID IT

Winter Cluster

Monkey Nebula?

Homemade 20-inch f/4 Newtonian reflector, Finger

Lakes Instruments IMG 1001E CCD camera. Tricolor
image assembled from red-, green-, and blue-filtered
exposures. Field is 28 wide centered at right ascension 6h 41.0m, declination +9 34. North is up.

Same telescope, CCD camera, and technique as used

for the Winter Cluster image. Field 12 wide centered
at right ascension 11h 14.8m, declination +55 01.
North is at upper left.

Large Magellanic Cloud

Summer Sporadic
Nikon FM2 camera with 50-mm f/1.4 lens. Brief exposure on Fuji Sensia 200 color-negative film pushprocessed 112 stops.

Mosaic assembled with RegiStar of four images shot on

35-mm Kodak Elite 100 slide film with a 300-mm f/2.2
Maksutov-Newtonian astrograph custom designed and
built by Peter Ceravolo. Field 15 wide centered at right
ascension 5h 18.5m, declination 68 47. North is up.

California Moonrise

Atmospheric Fireworks Near and Far

35-mm camera with 200-mm telephoto lens.Snapshop on Fuji Velvia color-negative film pushprocessed one stop to ISO 100.

Hasselblad medium-format camera with 80-mm lens

set at f/16, 30-second exposure on Fuji NPH 400
color-negative film.

Auroral Beam
35-mm camera with a 50-mm f/1.9 lens. Short exposure on Fujicolor 400 film.

Partial Sunrise
35-mm camera with 200-mm telephoto lens. Unfiltered
snapshot on Kodak 200 Gold color-negative film.

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December 2000 Sky & Telescope

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.