Draco
This is a sample chapter from my book A Decade in Stargazing — Told through twelve constellations. It’s available from Amazon and to order from all good bookshops.
There’s so much to see in Draco, but it’s not an easy constellation. Like its supposed mythological original, Ladon, who guarded the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides*, this particular dragon definitely and jealously hoards its treasure.
Historically I’ve been beaten by the dragon on several occasions, and for a number of reasons: Draco is a large constellation, and its position in the sky means that, often, large parts of it are quite high up, and looking straight up with a telescope/finder-scope is difficult, and murder on the neck and back. The second reason is that the objects within Draco are, although myriad, faint, or small, or both. However, there are rewards available for the determined.
Back in May 2020, I’d been musing on the subject of the DSO magnitude limit of my 10in scope, prompted by a rather casual mention of having spotted NGC 3735 in Draco in one of my blog posts. 3735 is a 12th magnitude (12.34) galaxy around 120 million light years away. ‘Surely some mistake,’ I thought, ‘… that’s way too faint to see from the UK with a 10in scope …’ My suspicion seemed to be confirmed by a subsequent, unsuccessful search for a magnitude 9.7 galaxy (NGC 4236 also in Draco), and from experience I’d come to regard the limit (for me, my then 56 year old eyes, under Bortle 4 skies, etc) as being around 9.5–10 …
I resolved to see if I could find 3735, and thus confirm the previous sighting. I began with NGC 4236, and failed again. Despite being mag 9.7 and about two-thirds the size of the full moon, 4236 is widely regarded as a difficult target due to its low surface brightness. Little chance for 3735, then … Well, surprisingly it was an easy find, and just a short hop from Giausar (SkySafari, interestingly, refers to this as Gianfar), the star at the tail of the dragon. Averted vision was required, but the galaxy was fairly obvious, the shape reminiscent of the Whale galaxy (NGC 4631) in Canes Venatici. My notes for the night, the second of June 2018: ‘NGC 3735, mag 12.34, 120mly in Draco, a slim sliver of a thing’.
I did manage 4236 on another occasion, back in March 2017, and thrilled I was to find it, I can tell you. That night was clearly a cracker, as my notes record sightings of galaxies up to mag 12.6 (NGC 4248), plus comet 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak. I did describe 4236 with just one word, though: ‘Faint’.
Recently (April 2022) I spent some more time exploring the constellation, particularly hoping to get a glimpse of a triplet of galaxies (NGC 5982, 5985 and 5981) close by the bright star Edasich. The former two are around magnitude 11, and I was able to spot them, after a couple of attempts. At 123 and 182mly distant, respectively, it was nice to get a definite sighting, and 5985 is one of the most distant objects I’ve yet seen with my telescope. 182 million light years away! It’s just astonishing, really, that one can witness something so distant, in both space and time. Those particular photons left the galaxy 183 million years ago, and have travelled approximately 1098 million, million, million miles, before ending up being funnelled into a telescope, in a back garden in Dorset …
Whilst in the area, I decided to take a look at the Spindle galaxy (M102), and have a go at NGC 5907, also an edge on spiral. Very pleased to bag them (though I’ve managed 102 before).
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I’m sure I’ve mentioned this already, but there’s something about edge-on galaxies that does it for me. I’m also sure this won’t be the last time I mention the fact … the Needle in Coma Berenices and NGC 891 in Andromeda are particular favourites. I don’t know for sure what the attraction is, but it may be the fact that they’re sharp in the eyepiece and often have dark dust lanes running through them, whereas most face-on galaxies are amorphous, wispy blobs with little in the way of detail. A nice edge-on galaxy, though, is something else. I know I’ve mentioned this already, but I clearly remember getting a stunning view of the Needle galaxy through fellow-Astrocamper Dave’s 14-inch Orion Optics Newtonian in the spring of 2017 (yes, it was at Astrocamp, and a special one at that, for I was able to take my young sons with me, and we were on the winning quiz team …). The Needle, though, truly was a cracking sight. To be fair to my own scope, though, the Needle looked great in it, too (if not better).
Anyway, back to Draco. In the spring of 2022, it was time for yet another visit to the Awesome Astronomy Astrocamp. The first night’s observing (Saturday) was amazing, if very cold (minus 7, I’m told), and the highlight for me was a view of the Cat’s Eye nebula, a magnitude 8.10 planetary nebula around 3100 light years away.
Like many planetaries, it can be tricky to observe without a go-to. It’s small, and stellar in appearance at low magnifications. I recall taking ages trying to spot it during a public observing session in Cerne Abbas several years ago, when one of those in attendance had mentioned it was one of her favourites, and she kept a Hubble image proudly displayed on her work computer’s desktop. Anyway, I looked, and I looked, and I looked, while those in attendance stood and shivered. In the end I had to give up, Draco had defeated me again! I could only apologise and, in an attempt to make light of the situation, declared that, clearly, ‘astronomy was definitely not a spectator sport’. Apologies, again, to Sarah and Louise.
Anyway, going back to the Cat’s Eye at Astrocamp, the startling thing about it was the intense blue colour, something I’d never seen before with this particular planetary nebula. It looked resplendent with my 10-incher, but what would more aperture bring, I wondered. The Blue Snowball often has a nice blue colour, but I’ve never seen the Cat’s Eye looking like that. I asked a friend, Pete, if I could take a look with his 16-inch dob, and the blue colour was obvious, if a little washed out and not quite so intense. I tried another friend’s scope, Alan’s Celestron C8, but there was no colour to be seen.
I had a look again recently from my back garden, and, although I found it easily enough, there was no colour in the Cat’s Eye this time … It just goes to show, seeing conditions, the sky darkness and equipment can make all the difference.
I absolutely love planetary nebulae. After perhaps billions of years of nuclear fusion, sun-like stars finally reach the end of their lives, in a cataclysmic explosion, or nova, and throw off their outer layers to seed the galaxy with the heavy elements they made. At a recent public stargazing session in Cerne Abbas, I was asked, jokingly, ‘had I ever found the meaning of life in the stars’. I replied ‘no, but I have seen the origin of life, and can show you very easily’. Not wanting to subject someone to a cold and boring wait again, while I struggled to find the Cat’s Eye, I chose the Ring nebula in Lyra, a much easier find. As she looked at the expanding, glowing rings of stellar debris, I briefly explained how just such an event, billions of years ago, contributed heavy elements essential for life to the nebula in which the sun and the planets formed, ultimately resulting in us … beings capable of observing and understanding the universe and our origins in it. As for any meaning in what she saw, I left that to her to find.
My notes contain more references to not finding this or that galaxy in Draco than probably any other constellation. One such cause of frustration is the Draco Dwarf Galaxy (UGC 10822); a mag 11 satellite of the Milky Way. Not too far from the Cat’s Eye. There are lots of forum posts attesting to its difficulty due to its low surface brightness, but also claims that it’s doable … it remains on my target list for now.
Draco is a huge constellation, is always visible (clouds permitting) from the northern hemisphere (circumpolar), and, as even a casual glance at the picture at the start of the chapter will confirm, it’s stuffed full of galaxies, including several that are interacting. There are also numerous double/binary stars, including Eta, Mu, Omicron, and Psi Draconis, all viewable with moderately sized scopes or binoculars. One could easily spend months exploring the dragon’s lair, if equipped with enough determination and fortitude (for they will be needed).
One could, of course, employ some kind of guidance system (go-to or push-to setup), but that’s not for me. I’m not snobby about such set-ups, and I definitely don’t regard them as cheating or anything. In fact, there have been many times when, tired and fed up at failing to find some faint fuzzy or other, that I’ve felt a certain jealousy for those who can just punch some NGC number into the handset and be taken straight to it (just like Captains Picard or Kirk). It’s just that, for me, the hunt for a particular object is as much part of the process as viewing it.
For me, there’s nothing like star-hopping, eye at the eyepiece, from one star, for example, to the next until, bam, the sought after object suddenly appears. Or, as is often the case, especially when it’s small and/or dim, something appears and the question arises, is that it? Whereupon shorter focal length eyepieces are employed to zoom in on the thing, in an attempt to verify the sighting. Or not, of course, and the hunt resumes …
- The Observer’s Book of Astronomy, by Patrick Moore
