Thanks to everyone who came along to our Stargazing Kendal events. I hope you were among the crowds who enjoyed gorgeous views of the Sun and Moon on the Saturday.
As darkness falls this week, look for a small ‘W’ of stars halfway up from the north east horizon, to the right of The Big Dipper. This is the famous constellation of Cassiopeia (The Queen), a zigzag of five blue-white stars. Skywatchers use Cassiopeia to help them locate many interesting objects in the sky, and one of them lies directly below it at this time of year.
Look just beneath the W and you will see a small, misty area. In binoculars this is revealed to be a pair of beautiful star clusters, hundreds of tiny white stars looking like two piles of salt spilled on black paper. This is the Double Cluster, but although the clusters look side by side one is actually twice as far away from Earth as the other.
Stuart Atkinson, Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal
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