24 October 2007

Based on the respective tables in the Observer’s Handbook 2008.

On all of these charts R.A. is depicted as a minus value so that R.A. 0h appears to the west.

Stars

Bright Stars Outside the Milky Way
brighter than Mag 1	38%	mostly below
Mag 1	35%	mostly above
Mag 2	50%	fairly evenly split
Mag 3	33%	fairly evenly split

Stars btighter than Mag 4. The list includes some double stars which are too close to assess individually and in these cases a combined magnitude is used. Some of the stars listed are variables and brightness values differ from source to source.

There is an area just above the Milky Way between R.A. 3h and R.A.7h that is about the only area of the sky that is conspicuously devoid of bright stars.

In this chart smaller circles represent closer stars.

The closest star if Proxima at 4.22 ly. The most distant star in the chart is BD-21°1377 at 18.82 ly.

Excel seems to want to have a small circle and a large circle and range the other values between them and it makes for a difficult to read chart. I wish there were a way to graph in three dimensions.

There is a stripe of bright stars that generally follows the celestial equator but snakes back and forth between -60° and +30° between R.A. 0h and R.A. 12h. There are then vertical bars of bright stars centered on R.A. 12h and R.A. 18h. The area around R.A. 15h is devoid of close galaxies with the exception of the two brightest stars, Proxima (4.22 ly) and α Centauri (4.4 ly).

Galaxies

The 40 brightest galaxies.

The two brightest galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud (Mag 0.63 and Mag 2.78 respectively) are well in the southern hemisphere. The bulk of the galaxies are Mag 8 and Mag 9 and are centered in bands around R.A. 1h and R.A. 12h. Of the nearly 50 galaxies charted only 5 are within the boundaries of the Milky Way.

The 25 nearest galaxies to our own which compirse the Local Group.

Most of the near galaxies are centered around R.A. 1-2h, but the nearest of the near galaxies are distributed across the R.A.s but appear to favor declinations near + or – 60°, the exception being the Sagittarius galaxy at -30°.

It isn’t possible to combine chart types in Excel so I can’t add the Milky Way to this or the Nearest Stars chart.

Radio Sources

A representative sample of the various radio sources

Since this chart displays representative samples of all the various types of radio sources no inference can be drawn as to the distribution of radio sources in the celestial sphere.

---

The long period variable star R Cas is scheduled to be at peak brightness (Mag 7.0) on 30Oct07 (+/-2-3 weeks) and cam remain at that brightness for several weeks before fading back to its minimum brightness (Mag 12.6). The subsequent maximum brightness is scheduled for 21Dec08. Since Cassiopeia is essentially circumpolar we should be able to watch the star go through a complete cycle. It will drop below SAR's limiting magnitude when it is getting close to it's dimmest.

R Cas HIP 9066 TYC 4009-00607-1 SAO 35938 BD+50°4202
R.A.	23h53m
Dec.	50