Mists of the Charioteer

Messier 37
Sketch and details by Peter Mayhew

Object Name: M37
Object Type: Open cluster
Location: York, UK
Date: 6th December 2009

When I first started staring at the night sky with binoculars a couple of years ago, I used to gaze for hours at the open clusters M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga; they seemed like patches of mist drifting across the rich stellar backdrop. Now I own a telescope, two of these, M36 and M38, resolve easily into visible stars, but at low power M37 retains its ethereal misty quality. With direct vision only a few stars can be seen, but they seem surrounded by faint mist. Moving around the scene, myriads of fainter stars in the catch sensitive spots in my retina and flicker in and out of existence, much like they seem to with the brighter globular clusters. Because of its delicate flickering quality, it’s by far my favourite of the three through a telescope. Several dark lanes cut through the mist, enhancing the seasonal character of the scene.

I use a Skywatcher Skyliner 150mm f8 Dobsonian, and viewed this through a 25mm eyepiece between 19.30 and 20.30 UT. I drew using graphite pencil on white paper, digitally scanned the image and reversed the colours using editing software.