With no Moon around, come and catch some starlight with us. Join the Southern Cape Astronomy Club for an evening of stargazing at Pearly Beach Village Green, (Herbarium) on Saturday 12th May from 19:30 onwards. Up for grabs will be galaxies, globular and open clusters as well as a planet or two. Two of my favourite targets that are visible in the early evening at this time of the year, are Omega Centauri and Centaurus A.
Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest of the globular clusters covering an area larger than the full Moon is an easy naked eye object and a stunning one at the eyepiece. The peculiar galaxy Centaurus A, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy lies between 10 to 16 million light years from us and is visible in binoculars. The dark lane of dust that crosses the galaxy is easily seen at the eyepiece and astronomers speculate that we are seeing an elliptical galaxy merging with a spiral one.
