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:
“He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their Talents within the Observation of such as should take Notice of them.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is no better proof of a man’s being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)