Dog days of from Canis Major
By John Sparks' dog Canis
As the Mascot of KO and owner of Sparky and Dru, I thought I might contribute more to the club than relieving myself on a Questar and barking at the moon. So being the astronomer I am, I climbed to my highest altitude (my dog house) and joined Sparky in observing the constellation named after me. Being that I have just finished growing, I am thinking about another article on Puppis, next door to Canis Major. Puppis holds far more star clusters alone and the length of the article might get RUFF! Canis Major, Canis Minor and Puppis make the stellar dog pack that faithfully stay next to Orion, the hunter. Like anywhere else in the sky, you can find plenty of dim galaxies to strain your eyes with in the dog pack. The real reward in viewing the dogs is with some of the best open star clusters in the sky. So on to Canis Major:
We will start with the star Sirius and "Star-Hop" from there. Which one is Sirius? Don't make me bite you! Just point your snout to the brightest true star in the sky and Orion should be just above your snout. By my image of Canis Major, Sirius is a star that rests on the collar of our stellar dog. While you can make out the rest of the dog in light polluted skies, it's much better in dark skies. Two or three degrees to the right is a star that marks the front paw of the dog. About another degree to the right of the paw is NGC2204 sitting between four bright starts. The cluster appears elongated with stars of various magnitudes. As a Herschel object, I would rate it "Fair".
Now if you go back to Sirius and go two or three degrees to the left, you will come upon the head
or ears of our stellar dog (Gamma-Canis Major). Go two degrees to the lower left of that and you will come upon NGC 2360. Can't find it? That's because you probably underestimate the size of this cluster as you can find it while doing your AL deep sky binocular list. NGC 2360 is also a Herschel object and looks good whether I put my snout on a telescope or binoculars. NGC2360 has a rectangular shape.
Go two degrees to the upper left of NGC2360 and you will come upon NGC2374, there are a couple stars that can help guide you there. NGC2374 is a small cluster with stars of various magnitudes. To me, it looks like an Indian with a Tomahawk running.
Using Sirius as the collar, sweep your snout down three or four degrees to a star with another brighter star about two degrees below it. The brighter star is the dogs "hind quarter" and if you go a degree to the upper left, you will find NGC2354. NGC2354 is a large and scattered open cluster with stars of variable brightness. NGC2354 has a "W" or wing shape to it.
If you go another degree to the upper left, you will find NGC2362 and THIS is one Shawn should like. NGC2362 is a large and bright open cluster and it looks like the Star Trek Starfleet logo with a star in the center. This is a good cluster for a Herschel and with one exception, the brightest open cluster in Canis Major. Amazing what one can find around a dogs butt, isn't it?
UH, OK... Let's go back to Sirius. From Sirius, go down about two degrees and you will find M41, otherwise known as NGC2287. M41 is also known as the "Little Beehive" versus M44, the Beehive in Cancer. M41 is still pretty big and bright enough to see using eyes only in dark skies. It sits in the heart of our stellar dog and is the brightest open cluster in Canis Major.
If you are new to star hopping, you just learned the basics of how this technique works. There are many more open clusters one can find in Canis Major and many more within our stellar dog pack.