Actual Astronomy - Messier Objects for August

Weather and night sky conditions

0:00It's the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, coming in 3, 2, 1.

0:20Messies for August 2026 on episode 547 of the Actual Astronomy podcast. I'm Chris, joining me is Shane. We are amateur astronomers who love looking up at the night sky, and this podcast is for everyone who enjoys going out into the stars, and I don't think we're going to be seeing any stars anytime soon, Shane, sadly. Yeah, the, excuse me, the clouds are moving in, we're getting some much needed rain, but definitely doesn't align to our needs to observe.

0:52No, it does look like some of that rain is going to fall on some of those fires over, you know, to our far west, so I mean, hopefully maybe even more of that rain falls over there and less of it here, because we're not that dry now. We've had a good rainstorm on Sunday. Yeah, there's pockets. I was in Saskatchewan Landing on the weekend, a provincial park about three hours away, and it was exceptionally dry there. Oh, wow.

1:23And there's a fire ban and all of the kind of stuff to, you know, be safe. But I'm going to Grasslands National Park East Block here on Monday, and part of me hopes there's a fire ban, because that often means less mosquitoes, because it's just too dry for them. And less people having fires, too. And that, too, which is never a bad thing, but like you said, I'm not sure that the clouds will agree with me anyway, so it's kind of, I don't know, this far out, you know, it's

1:56a Tuesday, so I'm, what, six days away? Yeah. Until about 24 hours out, it's really hard to say, especially down there, because you just, you never know, like the forecasting kind of data collection is really nowhere near grasslands for serious forecasting, so.

Globular clusters M12 and M10

2:17Yeah.

Globular clusters M12 and M10

2:18So let's talk about some of these objects, Messier objects for August.

2:25Messier 12 and Messier 10 are a couple of globulars up and off UCAS. You know, these ones, they will just about fit in my four-inch with the lowest power eyepiece, I think, and definitely in smaller instruments like your binoculars or the 12 by 36s and that. And, you know, once you get up into the eight-inch and larger telescopes, you begin to get some resolution there. But I think these are sort of like my two sort of favorite close-together globulars in the

2:58night sky. Yeah, they're great, and they're quite dense. Like, you know, smaller telescopes and binoculars will certainly allow you to see them, but they start to come into their own with a little more aperture. Yeah. Oh, and I should say this, just because we've been playing around a little bit with the AI stuff, and I guess you're supposed to say this if you are using it, but, you know, I don't know if anybody's really policing us too much. We're just not that big. But what I've been experimenting a little bit with it, and, you know, I'm not really

3:31happy if I say, hey, make us up podcast notes on, you know, some topics or suggest some topics and then make up the pop. But what I've been doing is, and for the next one we do, I went through the handbook and I have to write an article every year. And what I did is I kind of pulled out all these stars and deep sky objects and same with this, and then I kind of wrapped the AI around, like, all these prompts for all the different

4:05aspects of the things and inserting, like, some of my own stuff. And then, you know, it kind of seems like it makes slightly better notes this way. So it seems a little bit better. But I think in the last one, it ended up getting a bit inaccurate on some of those planets. So I got to make sure I check that stuff. Human in the loop, still a thing with AI, and probably will be for a while. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. But yeah, if you kind of play with it, you can get it to kind of curate.

4:37This one is, this one's okay. But the next one, I think I got it, kind of get it going a little bit better. But yeah, you kind of put in some, a lot of the time it's the work is like pulling all the stuff, figuring out what the things you're going to go through and how it's going to be structured and all that. And then, yeah, it kind of is useful for kind of like those, the nuance of threading it all together. So yeah, anyway, just thought I'd mention it because somebody was saying something somewhere about making sure you mention it.

5:08But yeah, so side by side, yeah, they're really beautiful to compare. And they've got a bunch of low mass blue stars. And yeah, I've written about them a couple times, like for the handbook. And I observe them pretty much every night. Love looking at them in the seven inch. You can really start to see all like the individual stars in the seven inch. Quite, quite nice. Yeah, for sure.

Messier 107 and M9

5:36M107 down in, a little bit further down in, in off Ucas. Um, it's a, it's a smaller, uh, globular cluster and, uh, it's a bit challenging for binoculars. You really need a pretty good, uh, dark sky. This is probably one of the ones I don't look at too much, usually just once a year. I was, I was looking around down in there early one morning, like 3am back in, uh, back in May. And I just took like a quick peek, but, um, even in the seven inch, there's really not

6:08much, you can see it's just sort of a brighter center and then it kind of trails off. And in binoculars, you could really mistake it for a star. Yeah, it's definitely not as bright. Like it's, uh, what magnitude 8.1, it looks like where 10 and 12 are in the high sixes like what, six, six, six, eight. Uh, so that's a pretty big difference. Um, it's, uh, and like you said, it's not the largest cluster either. So definitely in this part of the sky, uh, M10 and M12 are where you want to spend your

6:41time probably. Yeah, no, for sure. And then moving along to, uh, Messier 9, um, this one, yeah, you can start to see a little bit more detail because it's, uh, it's about a magnitude or so brighter, uh, magnitude's just under magnitude 8 and, uh, need a good pair of like 10 by 50 years of the 12 by 36s to, uh, to show it there. I end up observing that one a little bit more just because of the, uh, proximity to, you know, some of the other treasures down there in, uh, Scorpius.

7:14Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Small telescopes. You can see a bright unresolved, uh, central nucleus surrounded by a faint, uh, grainy halo. So, and it's close to the galactic center being over by, uh, that, uh, eastern side of Ophiuchus. Yeah. I don't think we're talking about M14 in the notes, but it's right there too.

7:41Um, let's see. I think it might be in the next one because it's further along. It's a little north of M9. It looks like. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All good. Yeah. Nearby, uh, M9 is, uh, Barnard 64, which is the dark nebula. And you need to be in a really dark sky, uh, to see that. But if you're using like, uh, you know, a nice eight or 10 inch scope, wide field eyepiece, like a good negular 20 or something like that, you'll be able to see that, uh, dark nebulosity

Clusters M19 and M62

8:15there.

Clusters M19 and M62

8:16Uh, moving along to, uh, M19 and M62. Yeah. These ones over there sort of, uh, closer to, uh, you know, that, that sort of Pentagon feature by, uh, in Scorpius near Antares. Um, these ones are separated by about four degrees and fit in a binocular field of view. Uh, they're, they're south of M10 and M12 and it's pretty cool that you actually have these two sets, these two pairs. Of course, M19 and M62 are, are a little bit, uh, fainter.

8:49Um, M19 is famous for, uh, this sort of egg shaped, uh, you know, I guess like figure to it. Um, whereas, uh, M62 sort of has a asymmetrical core and, uh, you know, some of those stars are kind of getting, uh, ripped apart there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think M62 is nicely set sort of against the background of the Milky Way too. So it's, uh, kind of a, a pretty view with a bunch of stars in the background.

9:20Um, I wanted to say, I just checked really quick and yeah, M14 is next month. Oh, okay. Yeah. Good. Yeah. It's sort of like that bigger one over on the Eastern side as we get too far East there, it kind of goes along, but heading towards the Southeast.

Open clusters M6 and M7

9:33Um, this is just, uh, East of the stinger of Scorpius is M6 and M7. And, uh, I did get a, uh, I think at least one, maybe two good nights observing those this year. And, uh, they're sort of very special cluster shame because they are, uh, or at least M7 anyway. Um, but M6 and M7 are these two open clusters. They're just on the, uh, Scorpius side of, uh, of the Milky Way where it cuts between Sagittarius

10:05and Scorpius. And, uh, you need really wide field to see them in both field of view, but M7 is about as far South. Um, well, it's the furthest, uh, Messier, uh, towards like the Southern horizon from here. And we really don't get too much M7 time, maybe three or four hours where it's decently above the horizon. Yeah. And for anybody further South, um, like both, both of these are, are, you know, pretty good

10:37naked eye objects too. Uh, if you have good skies and, uh, you know, it's nice and dark. Yeah. M6, they call it the butterfly cluster. It really does kind of look like a butterfly. Um, and it really is a very beautiful open cluster and it's amazing to see when you're further South. And M7 is Ptolemy's cluster, uh, uh, named after Ptolemy, the, uh, the sort of, uh, somewhat ancient astronomer there writing in, uh, in just after, uh, AD 130. And, uh, M7 was, I think it was the, one of the first objects I ever looked at, um, from

11:14within the structure of my observatory and when it was being built, because we wanted to make sure that, uh, I'd be able to see Messier 7 from inside the observatory. Cause I knew if I could see Messier 7, I'd be able to see all of the Messier objects from in there, at least at some point in the year. Yeah. That was a smart play by you. Yeah. Well, um, yeah, well my builder, he figured it out. Um, me less. So he kind of just mocked it up and I was like, yep, that works. Um, and I get it for, I get it pretty much without any obstruction for about, uh, an hour

11:50and a half, uh, on a given night in, uh, sort of the, uh, the mid, mid part of spring when it's just dark enough and, and just high enough and it kind of threads, threads through. It is pretty low there though, but yeah, you can see it. Um, and it's, uh, it's a beautiful open cluster. Of course we got some light pollution in and around here. So, um, we, uh, I have to say that from a really dark sky, uh, M7 is on the edge of like the Milky Way and you can actually see it's like on the edge of this, uh, big star cloud.

12:22And there are a lot of, uh, other, uh, double stars and, and clusters, uh, floating in and around that area. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty rich part of the sky.

Lagoon and Triffid nebulae

12:34Heading towards the, uh, north from there up the Milky Way. We get up to, uh, the lagoon nebula or Messier 8, um, and it's, uh, it's an emission nebula with an open cluster in Sagittarius. And, you know, from any decently dark sky, you can see that as, as a bright hazy patch within the band of the Milky Way itself, eh? Oh yeah. It, it really, like, it really stands out. Um, it's quite bright compared to, you know, a lot of the other parts of the Milky Way

13:06there and, um, it's a pretty, like, yeah, like you said, under the bright sky, um, it's a pretty easy naked eye object. Yeah. And if you use like a decently, uh, sized telescope, you can actually start to, to see some of like that dark lagoon area and you can start to see the cluster. And there's like a lot of other clusters. And I think even like a globular cluster that's, that's nearby. And then just above, uh, MA to the North, there is a dark band and then there's like a brighter patch that's above that.

13:38And because it's, um, it's a star forming region, you, you can use a nebula filter on it, like a O3 filter or UHC filter works pretty good at, uh, at really showing some of those, uh, those dark features that are within lagoon. And yeah, it's easily my favorite summer nebula to look at just because of how bright it is, how big it is and how much detail you can see. And as you mentioned, there's a, there's a few other clusters to look at. It looks like, uh, NGC 6523, 6530 and 6533, uh, open clusters to, to check out.

14:15Yeah. Yeah. There's quite a, quite a bit in the area. I used to spend a lot of time down in there, just hunting up all the different, there's like even a couple of globular clusters in and around there somewhere and going through, through all that. If you have a good horizons going, uh, just towards the North, uh, West, we have the, the M20 Trifid and M21, um, open cluster. Um, the Trifid is an emission reflection and dark nebula all rolled into one. And it's just about a degree and a half North West of, uh, Messia 8.

14:48And, um, you know, in, in, uh, guys, uh, nine to quarter inch, um, Celestron HD edge. I was looking at that from South of Moose Jaw one night and you could see that sort of famous Trifid pattern, which kind of looks like a cloverleaf, uh, in my mind. So between, um, M8 and M20, do you have a favorite between those two famous nebula? Well, I, I mean, really like to me, like M8, M20, M21, and then there's, there's a bunch

15:23of this other stuff that's in there. To me, that is all one object. You know, when the first amateurs were looking at this, um, before Messia, you know, they, you know, and those that were doing it with the unated eye, they would have just, just seen that as one thing probably. Right. Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. Because if you're using a small telescope in particular, you know, and there, there's would have had smaller fields, but if you point your binoculars at it and your, or your small telescope, like, especially if you had like a 60 or 70 millimeter, uh, short focal

15:56length refractor, you put your wide field and I mean, it is all really compact together. It really just kind of sort of looks just like one thing, even though they are, uh, different objects out there. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, that's a, yeah. Kind of an interesting tidbit of how, um, you know, early observers would have, uh, observed it. Yeah. And the, uh, dark lanes that run through the Triffid, that's, uh, Barnard 85. Of course, Barnard was a, uh, turn of the, uh, 20th century amateur astronomer turned professional

16:27who, uh, created this great work called the, um, uh, selected regions of the Milky Way. I have, of course the, the, uh, Dobeck re-release edition of it, uh, well, well worth getting if people are interested in that kind of thing. Barnard, very inspirational, uh, character in the history of astronomy. Um, M21 is also in there as well. Well, it's like rate, uh, I think just right above M20 and it's a compact, bright, uh, region of stars. Uh, you can see about three dozen stars all sort of packed tightly together and kind of

17:01like what we were saying, like the, the three of those plus there's all kinds of other stuff in that general area, uh, make a really great, uh, group of objects to check out. Mm-hmm. Yep. Uh, going, uh, north still, we get to M23, uh, which is an open cluster there, just, uh, almost getting out of Sagittarius, but still in Sagittarius, sort of like a large, bright, broad patch, uh, about the size of the full moon, uh, using low magnification and small telescopes really in that sort of a 60 millimeter to five inch range, I think are your, your best.

17:36And it has all these, uh, subtle arc like patterns in it. I've, I've drawn this several times just through binoculars and it's a, it's a fantastic, uh, open cluster. Yeah. Yeah. You know, part, parts of it sort of remind me of cursive writing, how, you know, you just sort of have like wispy flows and this cluster has some of that aspect to it. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I know it'll be on our notes next, uh, next month as, as we're at the end.

18:07And I think the way that these are paired out, uh, on SEDS is, is to have like sort of so many of these messy objects per month, not necessarily maybe the order I would have put them in, but I always like to look at M23 and M25, uh, at the same time because the Milky Way, uh, bisects, uh, those two clusters and sort of right in between is, is kind of sort of like the M24, um, misnamed star cloud because of course it's, it only appears like a star cloud, but what we're looking through is Bates Window, which is a, uh, window in all the

18:42dust and gas that is in our Milky Way and allows us to see, um, a very dense part of the spiral arm structure, uh, beyond that, that would otherwise be hidden. It's not like a, um, like a distinct real feature of the Milky Way. It's just how it appears, which is also pretty cool. Super cool. And it's a, it's, yeah, we'll probably talk about it next month, like you said, but, uh, like the distinction between like this rich star field and then it's like, there's a border and all of a sudden it's not a rich star field.

19:13It's quite fascinating to me. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Anything to add to, uh, to these notes?

Observing challenges and poor weather

19:20I certainly went and observed all these. Um, but part of the problem with the way that we're doing it, which is sort of my self-manufactured problem is I went and did all these observations. Like it feels like an eternity ago. It was like, oh, three, more than three months ago, like three and a half months ago. I think like the 13th of May or something like that, looking at my notes. So it's like three and a half months ago that I was doing these observations. Well, this has been the worst observing season for me in a long, long time.

19:54Maybe my whole amateur astronomy career, um, just between, you know, a bit of the weather issues and then personal commitments and things like that. I just haven't had many opportunities to get out. Yeah. And when I've planned dark sky trips, uh, the weather has been terrible and has not cooperated. So I'm hoping my luck changes and I can get some astronomy done in Grasslands National Park. But if not, I guess I'll hope for another day. Yeah. It's sort of like this weird, bad keyhole of conditions where earlier on we were having

20:27so much rain. Yep. And then we did start to get a little bit of smoke. We've certainly had a lot more smoke in the past several years than we've had this year for whatever reason. Um, just sort of, uh, we've been fortunate the way the winds have, have drawn. Um, but you know, it, it, it has been the case that either we've had like cloud and some rain or just generally damp conditions like that are too damp to do astronomy and, and, and too much cloud and fog. Like we had fog this morning or maybe it was yesterday, but anyway.

20:57And then, um, on the flip side, when it has cleared out, while those clear skies have been accompanied by a very high level smoke, like it's, it's not mixed down typically in the past several years, the smoke has, has mixed down so that, you know, we were breathing it in, which is extremely unpleasant. But this year the smoke has, has remained very high up for the most part. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's been kind of a little bit better health wise, but still, uh, enough to impact our astronomy.

21:28Yeah. Well, I certainly hope to get out here in the, in the next few weeks. Like I said, I don't have too much hope for the, uh, star party, which, um, um, I'm going to try to attend this weekend. I was telling you, sadly, my plans have taken a bit of a nosedive and I'm hoping I'll make it still. But, uh, you know, I think it's going to be clear on Saturday. Of course, it looks like if I go, I have to come back Saturday. So it's just like, uh, very much, uh, things have, have been conspiring, uh, against me. And then I have had some lucky breaks too.

21:59I went observing with Bill in, in the spring when I was out on Vancouver Island and we had two pretty good nights. So, you know, I have had some lucky, uh, lucky breaks there too. Yeah. And, and just based on some listener emails, uh, you and I are not the only ones dealing with adverse, uh, observing conditions. There's quite a few people dealing with it. Um, you know, sadly, uh, the whole forest fire smoke issue is, you know, quite widespread in Canada and the U S at least. Yeah.

22:30And well, even over in Europe, uh, which is causing all sorts of grief, uh, not just astronomy, obviously, but beyond that too. So, so, yeah. All right. Well, with that, uh, please subscribe, share the show with other stargages, you know, send us your show ideas, observations, and questions to actual astronomy at gmail.com. You are listening to the 365 days of astronomy podcast.

23:01Cool.

23:08The 365 days of astronomy podcast is produced by the planetary science Institute. Audio post production is by me, Richard drum project management is by Aviva Yamani and hosting is donated by libsyn.com. This content is released under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial 4.0 international license. Please share what you love, but don't sell what's free. This show is made possible. Thanks to the generous donations of people like you, please consider supporting our show

23:43on patrion.com forward slash Cosmo quest X and get access to bonus content without your passion and contribution. We won't be able to share the stories that inspire the world. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with the listeners worldwide. As we wrap up today's episode, we're looking forward to unraveling more stories from the universe with every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories and each milestone

24:14in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it until next time, let the stars guide your curiosity. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

24:44We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.