Observation
The Jewel Box cluster is regarded as one of the finest objects in the southern sky. It exhibits subtle colours, aside from the vivid red supergiant Kappa Crucis from which the cluster takes its name. It is visible to the naked eye as a hazy object of the fourth magnitude. The Jewel Box cluster can be easily located using the star Beta Crucis as a guide, and appears as a fourth magnitude object. The three brightest members of the cluster lie in a straight line known as the 'traffic lights' due to their varying colours.
The Jewel Box cluster is impressive when viewed with binoculars or a small telescope, but even more so in a large telescope because the background nebulosity becomes more prominent.
Read more about this topic: Jewel Box (star Cluster)
Famous quotes containing the word observation:
“Let observation with extensive view;
Survey mankind, from China to Peru;”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and not pure science, or are performing faithful but quite subordinate labors in particular departments. They make no steady and systematic approaches to the central fact.... There is wanting constant and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and discipline it. But, above all, there is wanting genius.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)