Moon to Hide Beehive Star on May 10, 2008
Galileo has first resolved this “nebulous” object, and reported: “The nebula called Praesepe, which is not one star only, but a mass of more than 40 small stars.” It was probably later seen and partly resolved in 1611 by Peiresc, the discoverer of the Orion Nebula (M42), and observed as a cluster by Simon Marius in 1612. Charles Messier added it to his catalog on March 4, 1769.
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On this coming Saturday, March 10, the moon will be located in the southwestern sky positioned within the constellation of Cancer. Anyone with binoculars or small telescopes with low power will be able to see it once darkness begins. Considered the least conspicuous of the twelve constellation signs, Cancer is known only for Praesepe, the Beehive Star Cluster, as it is one of the brightest star clusters in the entire sky.
As the moon prepares to pass or cross in front of Praesepe, astronomers will refer to it as “occultation”, or an eclipse of a celestial star cluster by the moon. Praesepe is formerly referred to as Messier 44, and was one of the very few star clusters mentioned in antiquity times. Used as a weather forecaster in these early days, in 130 B.C. the individual Hipparchus called it “Little Mist” or “Little Cloud”. Another individual in 260 B.C. by the name of Aratus recognized the fact that when the sky was very clear and “Little Mist” was invisible, usually it meant a storm was approaching.
Remaining a mysterious patch of light, Praesepe became officially recognized in 1610 through the astronomer Galileo when he directed his telescope toward the star cluster, this mysterious patch of light too dim for an unaided eye detection. But if one has a large telescope, about 200 dozen of its star can be see, appearing extremely large because of its relative closeness to Earth at a distance of 580 light years away, and the stars cover an area three times the diameter of the moon.
The title “beehive” of Praesepe is a new name adopted by recent times, containing one blue star. The European Space Agency’s satellite Hipparcos, the “beehive” star is about 577 light years distant away whereas previous estimates were only 522 light years away.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
