Kitt Peak Nightly Observing Program
Splendors of the Universe on YOUR Night!
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M42 The Orion Nebula
M42, the Orion Nebula is a region of star formation about 1,300 light-years away—the closest to our Solar System. It is roughly 30 light-years across, and contains enough material to make 2,000 stars the size of our sun.
M31 Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is our nearest major galactic neighbor. It is a spiral galaxy 2,500,000 light-years away, and has a diameter of 220,000 light-years. This galaxy contains as much material as 1.5 trillion suns.
M15 is a distant globular cluster, 33,000 light-years away. It has 100,000 stars, and is one of the oldest known globular clusters, having formed about 12 billion years ago.
Albireo (β Cyg)
Named long before anyone knew it was more than one star, Albireo (β Cygni) comprises of a set of stars marking the beak of Cygnus, the swan. Through a telescope, we see two components shining in pale, but noticeably contrasting colors: orange and blue. The difference in color is due to the stars’ difference in temperature of over 9000°C! The brighter orange component, Albireo A, is actually a true binary system, though we can’t resolve two stars in the telescope. The fainter blue component, Albireo B, may be only passing by, and not gravitationally interacting with Albireo A at all. Albireo is about 430 light-years away.
Almach (γ And)
Almach (γ Andromedae) appears as a golden and blue double star in small telescopes. The blue star itself is actually three stars, too close together to see as individuals, making Almach a four-star system. It is about 350 light-years away, and orbits with a period of several thousand years.
Hind’s Crimson Star (R Lep)
Hind’s Crimson Star (R Leporis), contains lots of carbon in its outer atmosphere, which dims and reddens its starlight. Changing amounts of carbon cause the star to vary in color and brightness, sometimes making it one of the reddest stars in the sky.
Your Telescope Operator and Guide. Thank you for joining me this evening! See you soon!!
The web page for the program in which you just participated is at
Nightly Observing Program. Most of the above images were taken as
the Overnight Telescope Observing Program. For more information on this unique experience please visit Overnight Telescope Observing Program.
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