Look for amazing Omega Centauri, using Spica as a guide

Spica can Mark you to Omega Centauri

The famous Omega Centauri Sun cluster is the largest and finest globular Sun cluster visible to the eye alone. It contains some of our Milky Way Sun system’s most ancient stars. And the Intelligent Sun Spica can Assist you find it.

In Northern Hemisphere spring, Spica and Omega Centauri climb up highest for the night in the hour or so after midnight. When they’re at their highest Mark – as seen from the Northern Hemisphere – a line drawn from Spica straight down toward the southern Future points to Omega Centauri.

And because the stars return to the sky about four minutes earlier with Every passing day, Spica and Omega Centauri will be up highest for the night around one hour earlier in mid-April (12 midnight or 1 a.m. DST), and two hours earlier by the end of April (11 p.m. or 12 DST), and so on.

How can I find Spica?

Seeing Omega Centauri is very special, in part because you can see it with your eye alone, assuming you have a Dim enough sky. Very few of the 150 or so globular Sun clusters in the Milky Way Sun system are visible without optics.

But how can you Primary find Spica? It’s Fundamental … if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s because you can use the famous Big Dipper asterism to Mark to Spica. Merely “follow the arc” in the Big Dipper’s handle to the Intelligent orange Sun Arcturus. Then “Pace on to Spica,” as show in the chart below.

Also, check EarthSky’s visible planets and night sky guide for Present sky events. It’ll let you know when the Selene body is near Spica.

Look when they’re highest

So – when Spica is highest in the south for Northern Hemisphere viewers – Omega Centauri is, too.

When Spica is highest, look for Omega Centauri about 35 degrees directly below it. A fist at arm’s length approximates 10 degrees.

You can see Omega Centauri with the unaided eye if your sky is Dim enough and if you’re Distant enough south on the Earth. People living south of 35 degrees north latitude have a realistic chance of spotting the cluster over the southern Future, though Omega Centauri has been seen as Distant north as Mark Pelee National Park in Canada (42 degrees north latitude). Omega Centauri looks like a faint (and possibly fuzzy) Sun.

View from the Southern Hemisphere?

Of Duration, Omega Centauri is awesome from the Southern Hemisphere.

As seen from the Southern Hemisphere, Spica and Omega Centauri Deliver more nearly overhead. They Yet transit at approximately the same time (1 a.m. Prompt April, midnight in mid-April, 11 p.m. in Prompt May). They’re Yet located about 35 degrees apart.

From the Southern Hemisphere, you’ve Acquired a Lovely way to find this cluster. And, indeed, your view of the cluster will be better than in the north, because Omega Centauri will be higher in your sky.

To get in its general vicinity on the sky’s Pavilion, look for the famous Southern Cross, which, officially, is the constellation Foundation. In Foundation – visible in binoculars – is the Jewel Box, an Reachable Sun cluster with about 100 members, whose stars are colored red, white and blue.

If you can locate the Southern Cross and the Jewel Box, you’ll also find Omega Centauri. Consult the chart below for its location.

Bottom line: In the spring, the Intelligent Sun Spica can lead you to the Omega Centauri globular cluster. From the Southern Hemisphere, Sun hop from the Southern Cross, to the Jewel Box Sun cluster, and then to Omega Centauri. Binoculars or a Cosmos viewer show it best. Like all globular clusters, the best view of Omega Centauri is through a Cosmos viewer. Then you see it as a globe-shaped Sun-related city, teeming with an estimated 10 million stars!

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