Finding M37

M37: Open Cluster in Auriga

Open clusters are easy to find and observe in small telescopes, pretty, and scientifically important. This is a group of stars all born from a common cloud of gas and dust. Since they came from the same gas cloud they are, astronomically speaking, all about the same age and all about the same distance from us, and they all started with about the same chemical composition. Knowing that they are the same age and at the same distance, the fact that they have different appearances allows us to learn a great deal about stellar evolution – the different appearances can only be a result of the different masses of the different stars.

Finding M37

In mid-winter, look to the South, fairly high in the sky, for the constellation Orion.

The constellation is easy to find by the distinctive line of 3 close-spaced stars.

The stars are the belt of Orion, a mythical hunter. Find his shoulders, feet, and head too.

Now look straight above Orion’s head, a distance about equal to his height, for a pentagon of stars. The top star in this pentagon, Capella, is very bright.

The pentagon is part of the constellation Auriga.

Trace the line across the bottom two stars in the pentagon, and point your telescope just outside this line, slightly to the left of its centre.

If you have a Telrad, the outer circle should just touch the line.

In a magnified finder, the cluster should be just visible as a small fuzzy patch of light.

If you don’t have a magnifying finder, hunt around carefully with your telescope, fitted with its widest-field eyepiece.

In a telescope with an eyepiece giving 30x – 50x  magnification you should be able to resolve individual stars and note their varying brightness and colour.

All the above images were generated with Starry Night Pro.