DEEP SKY CHALLENGE
DISCOVER URSA MAJOR
Explore obscure deep-sky wonders lurking far beyond the stars of the Great Bear
Owl Nebula (M97)
© Getty
NGC 5005
© NASA/ESA
Although far away compared to our own Sun, in cosmic terms the familiar stars of the Big Dipper are quite close to Earth – all between 80 and 123 light years away. But when you look at and through the Big Dipper, you’re looking away from the Milky Way’s cluttered star clouds, past its frothy, curving spiral arms and out into the endless depths of space. This month your deep-sky targets all lie many thousands or even many millions of light years away, and are all so faint you will definitely need a large telescope to see them all. Most are remote, exotic galaxies, far beyond the outer rim of our Milky Way, but one is a famously odd-looking planetary nebula, the ghostly remains of a once-proud star that exploded more than 6,000 years ago. Time to swing your telescope around to face north, slot in your best eyepiece and start hunting.