THE POINTER

Asterism in Centaurus

 (Image Centered at ra: 14:20.59 / dec - 60.53)

April 2011, Laguna de Todos los Santos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Collaboration with Juan Jose Destefani (acquisition) and Sergio Eguivar (processing)

DATA

TYPE: Asterism

APPARENT MAGNITUDE: Alpha Cent - 0.27 / Beta Cent 0.6

FOV: 14 degrees

DISTANCE: Alpha Cent 4.365 / Beta Cent 350 light years

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

Centaurus contains the two "pointer stars" Alfa and Beta Centauri. A line made from this two stars points to the Southern Cross and therefore its name. This asterism lies in a relative rich region of our Milky way

None of them are single stars. Alpha Centauri aka Rigil Kentaurus is actually a binary star system and its total magnitude make it the brightest star of the constellation of Centaurus and the third brightest star in the night sky. The individual components are Alpha Cent A and Alpha Cent B. The stars orbit a common center nearly every 80 years. Beta Centauri aka Hadar consist on a triple star system. Beta Centauri is a B1III star, which means that it is very hot and very large. The “III” classification means that it is a giant star.

Many star clusters are also visible in the image. 6th magnitude open cluster NGC 5617 (close to Rigil Kent) with 10 arcs minutes wide; lower mid left NGC 5662 Magnitude 5.5 and 30 arc minutes wide. Upper right NGC 5316 with also 6 magnitude and  16 arc minutes of size, and NGC 5281 shining at Magnitude 5.9 and only 8 arc minutes in diameter.

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: 70/300 Sigma Zoom Lens stoped at f5.6

MOUNT: HEQ5

SKY CONDITIONS: Very good

CAMERA: Canon 450 (stock)

FILTERS: None

EXPOSURES: total integration 2 hours

GUIDING: Orion 80/400 Mod Philips Toucam and Guidemaster

PROCESSING: Images Plus (Sigma Median Combination) No darks, nor flats, nor offsets, Photoshop CS