Composer Andrey Klimkovsky. BLOG

russian | english

Andrey Klimkovsky is a Russian composer working in the electronic music space. Musical images he created — «Music of Celestial Spheres», «Starry Sky», «ALEALA» and «DreamOcean» have become classics of the genre, gaining fame both in Russia and abroad. The musician regularly gives spectacular live concerts and collaborates with many other representatives of the Russian electronic scene, leads a popular community about synthesizers and workstations, participates in astronomical expeditions and practices a healthy lifestyle.

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Night from October 15 to October 16, 2022. The Moon is near the open stellar cluster M 35

This night the Moon will rise before midnight. It will move into Gemini constellation and will be close to the open stellar cluster M 35 (also known as NGC 2168). The open stellar cluster M 35 has an integral magnitude of about 5m, which means that under favorable conditions it can be seen by the eye. Indeed, this cluster has been known since ancient times. Its description , as a foggy spot resembling the sole of a sandal, is present in the astronomy textbook of the ancient Greek astronomer Geminos. Two thousand years later, in the middle of the 18th century, the cluster was independently rediscovered by Jean Philippe de Chezo (Swiss astronomer) and John Bevis (English astronomer and physician). Renowned French comet catcher Charles Messier listed the cluster as number 35 in his catalog of nebulous objects — the cluster has been best known by that number ever since.

Interestingly, M 35 is indeed located in the place of the Gemini constellation, where the impressionable priests and philosophers of the past saw the right foot of Castor — one of the characters in the Greek myth, due to the sudden death of which the Gemini constellation arose. So, the mention of the appearance of the accumulation in the form of a sole could have been inspired by mythical fantasies at that distant time.

Let me remind you the plot

Castor and Polydeuces are inseparable twin brothers — the children of the king of Sparta — Tyndareus, and his wife — the beautiful Leda. Not without the participation of Zeus, who descended from heaven to Leda in the form of a Swan, while her husband was at war. As a result, Leda gave birth to twin boys, one of whom was the son of Zeus — immortal, and the other — the son of Tyndareus — mortal. When a mortal twin named Castor fell in battle, his immortal brother Polydeuces (or Pollux in the Roman version of reading) asked his father Zeus to deprive him of immortality so that he could follow his brother to the kingdom of Hades, because the twins are inseparable. But instead, Zeus placed both twins in the Heaven.

By the way, Leda is one of the few earthly women who managed to avoid severe punishment from the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus. Leda's soul was so pure that Hera could not catch on at least some character flaw in order to take revenge on her rival.

But back to the cluster of stars

M 35 is one of the most popular objects for amateur astronomers. It is perfectly visible with binoculars and small telescopes, and in mountainous conditions — even just with the eye. Although, in optics, of course, more interesting.

The open stellar cluster M 35 has been removed from us at a distance of about 3 thousand light years, has a diameter of about 12 light years and contains several thousand stars. The age of the cluster is estimated to be 100-150 million years — a fairly young cluster. It flies in our direction, however, with a small speed by space standards — about 5 km per second.

Just 15 arc minutes (half the angular size of the Moon) to the west of the M 35 cluster, strong telescopes can see another cluster — NGC 2158, which is also considered scattered. But, most likely, this is something intermediate between open and globular stellar clusters. For a globular cluster, this formation has too few stars and a weak concentration in the center, but its age of 2 billion years is extremely old for open clusters that live only a few hundred million years and then decay. If this cluster managed to maintain structural integrity for so long, then the bonds between the stars are very strong here, and there are a lot of stars themselves.

The second cluster is located much further than the first — 12 thousand light-years from us. It is somewhere on the very edge of our Galaxy.

Of course, the Moon does not contribute to the observation of these objects — it strongly illuminates the sky around it, and faint stars dim in the moonlight. But it will point you to a place where you may look for something interesting to observation on the next nights.

Not far from the Moon to the west, bright Mars will sparkle with red rays this night. Don't forget about it. It's worth seeing too.