• Stargazing News - July 27th, 2025

    From CJ@21:2/156 to All on Sat Jul 26 07:00:55 2025
    Sunday July 27, 2025

    The Tweedledum and Tweedledee Clusters (all night)

    Aim binoculars halfway between Altair and the star Celebrai in Ophiuchus and look for a pair of bright, magnitude 4.6 open star clusters straddling the border between Serpens and Ophiuchus. Since their centres are separated by nearly 3 degrees, the duo will nicely fill your binoculars' field of view - like a southerly version of the Double Cluster in Perseus. The smaller, more westerly cluster NGC 6633, dubbed Tweedledum, contains more than 50 prominent stars arranged in loose clumps stretching NE-SW across 30 arc-minutes of sky. The larger, easterly cluster is named Graff's Cluster or IC 4756 - but I
    prefer Stephen O'Meara's suggested moniker of Tweedledee. A rich core of 70 or more magnitude 9 stars distributed in pairs and clumps sits inside a 1-degree- wide circlet of magnitude 6-8 stars. Can you detect the dark dust region to
    the east of these "twins"?

    (Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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    * Origin: CJ's Place, Orange City FL > cjsplace.thruhere.net (21:2/156)